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f 



“Out of the Way.” 


BY 


/ 


ANNETTE LUCILLE NOBLE, 

ii 

AUTHOR OF “ UNDER SHELTER,” ETC. 


Who can have compassion on the ignorant, and on 
them that are out of the way, Heb. B : 2 . 



AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY, 


I 50 NASSAU STREET, NEW YORK. 





COPYRIGHT, 1879, 

BY AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY. 


“OUT OF THE WAY. 


CHAPTER I. 

“ When the conflict ends, and slowly 
Clears the smoke from out the skies, 

When far down the purple distance 
All the noise of battle dies ; 

When the last night’s solemn shadows 
Settle down on you and me, 

May the love that never faileth 
Take our souls eternally.” 

“ Here comes Miss Hallenbeck,” said Mrs. 
Grey to her friend Mrs. Stuart, as they sat in the 
pretty parlor of the latter, one afternoon about the 
last of May. 

“ Indeed,’* returned Mrs. Stuart. “ It is time she 
made her appearance, and I shall tell her so which 
she did, forthwith, on Miss Hallenbeck’s entrance, 
adding pleasantly, “ How did you think I could get 
along with my Spring sewing without you 

“ Oh,” said Miss Hallenbeck, characteristically. 


4 


OUT OF THE WAY. 


“ I knew you would plan to have more than you 
really needed, and, if I waited you would find it 
out.” 

To this speech each lady assented with a laugh, 
well understanding the speaker. She sewed, when 
she liked, for well-to-do patrons, and their money 
helped her to sew for all sorts of people who never 
could pay her. She never broke a promise to the 
first ; but the truth was she seldom would make 
one. She was not going to bind herself to ‘‘sew 
corkscrew flounces around and around,” on just 
such a day, when likely as not she might want to 
stay with somebody sick in a tenement house. 
She was very queer, very independent ; too dread- 
fully sallow and sharp-boned and snapping-eyed 
ever to be one bit like a beautiful conventional 
“ ministering angel but tender-hearted enough to 
do such unworldly things as to lend money without 
security, and to give away her own clothes faster 
than she could replace them. This afternoon she 
dropped, somewhat wearily, into a willow rocking- 
chair and sat, at first silent, enjoying the restful 
atmosphere of the dainty room with its pictures, 
its snowy curtains, through which the sunset light 
streamed in over the many vines and flowering 
shrubs adorning every corner and bracket. 


“ OUT OF THE IVA V: 


5 


I thought you two ladies might have gone out 
of town to the country for the summer,” said Miss 
Hallenbeck. 

“ No,” said Mrs. Stuart, we have not ; and 
what is more, we are not going. I shall try an ex- 
periment this year. Mr. Stuart cannot leave his 

business, and it is not feasible for me to go to G 

where I usually go for July. Now we live out here, 
so far from the noise and most of the things that 
make the city disagreeable, that I am going to be 
unfashionable enough to stay at home so long as I 
keep well and happy ; best of all, Mrs. Grey will do 
likewise. We can get plenty of fresh air, and by 
a little exertion enjoy lovely trips on the river.” 

‘‘I think you are very sensible,” said Miss 
Hallenbeck decidedly. “This living in a trunk, 
tearing around the country in hot, dusty cars, eat- 
ing in hotels what would sicken you at home, is 
spending money for naught. It is different going 
where you watch the ocean or climb the mountains 
to get quieted, up nearer to God ; thinking how he 
makes grand things we forget about in the folderol 
of city performances. Yes, overworked folks need 
a change ; but you have a nice home and good 
health, while your Jane makes better bread than 
you will find very often.” 


6 


OUT OF THE WAY: 


“ Yes, she does ; take off your hat and try some 
of it to night.” 

‘‘Thank you, I meant to, if I found you at 
home,” said Miss Hallenbeck, depositing a vener- 
able head covering on the carpet and exposing a 
quantity of reddish gray hair, done up to look like 
a rusty iron door-knob. Gentle Mrs. Grey, in her 
quaker-colored silk, could not but be amused at the 
contrast between this angular outspoken spinster, 
in her heavy shoes and old black alpaca and the 
noble dark-eyed hostess whose dress was always 
exquisite for taste and fitness ; but the amusement 
was only kindly ; for these three women knew 
each other’s worth. There had been, in the past, 
days when Mrs. Stuart ran the sewing-machine, 
while Miss Hallenbeck cut and trimmed silk, velvet, 
and linen, and when they had met soul to soul. 
Earnest Christians can meet, like the nearest rela- 
tives, if you bring each to the other from the antip- 
odes. So this dressmaker, who thought the rare 
statuary here “ heathenish,” was yet learned enough 
in her Bible and rich enough in experience to be a 
valuable friend and often a teacher to the sincere, 
enthusiastic lady, whose culture had not outrun her 
piety. Time and again when their hands were 
busy with the things that perish with the using, 


“ OUT OF THE WAYT 7 

their talk was wholly of the truest things in life, the 
deepest secrets of the hereafter. 

“Your church is closed during the summer and 
your Sunday-school suspended, I suppose,” said 
Miss Hallenbeck ; “ but I believe you are one of 
the sort who do n’t give their piety an entire vacation. 
What are you going to do for other people now T 

“You tell me,” asked Mrs. Stuart. “I asked 
Mrs. Grey this afternoon what our summer work 
could be. With good health and time outside of 
home duties and interests, what shall I, can I do ? 
I always try to keep my eyes open for chances to 
help those right around me, but is this enough ? I 
have felt impelled to ask this even about my winter 
work ; there is my Sunday-school class of ten 
excellent young girls ! They listen attentively to 
what they have always known ; they are so hedged 
in by good influences that they are comparatively 
sure to go aright and really my efforts with them is 
what you might call gospel fancy work.” 

Miss Hallenbeck laughed. 

“ Yes ; I agree with you. Fancy work is good 
and beautiful ; but there is drudgery, and few able 
or willing to do it for the Master. I could show 
you work hard enough, only I am not sure you are 
equal to it.” 


8 


OUT OF THE WAY.” 

“Come, now,” cried Mrs. Stuart coaxingly, but 
in earnest ; “ find Mrs. Grey and myself a mission.” 

“No, I shall noty' said that lady emphatically.' 

“ If the Lord has a work for you, you and he, to- 
gether, must find it out. However, I will help you 
if I can,” she added. 

She leaned forward, and looked out of the win- « 
dow, exclaiming, “ What a beautiful view there is 
here !” And truly there was, for a smooth-shaven 
lawn sloped down to the river, and across the spark- 
ling water, between tall old trees, were great gray 
stone towers, faintly rose-tinted from the evening sky. 

“ A lady once told me,” said Mrs. Grey, “ that 
those grim buildings over there made her think of 
castles on the Rhine, and sent her off into wonder- 
ful day-dreams and reminiscences of travel, when- 
ever she watched them. She lived opposite here 
for fifteen years, and never tired of the view.” 

A strange expression crossed the sallow face, as 
Miss Hallenbeck remarked, “ Lived here fifteen 
years and dreamed, did she, when she watched sun- 
set lights on the outside of those buildings, did she } 
Well, well, I am afraid, if she had gone inside them 
at the end of that time, she would have had what 
old Deacon Mills calls a realizing sense of things, 
and have experienced a nightmarey to say the least.” 


OUT OF THE WAY. 


9 


Mrs. Grey, not understanding her meaning, 
looked over to what she had vaguely considered 
“ City Institutions of Charity and Correction,” and 
was silent. Mrs. Stuart, out of some inner reason- 
ing of her own, asked suddenly, “ Do n’t you think 
I am adapted to anything but fancy work U 

“ I cannot tell until you try ; but if you were 
sure yoti could do any sort of Christian work, it 
would be proof to me you were not. What would 
you think of folks poking right into a hospital, 
and going to work nursing, doctoring, dosing, ad- 
vising the patients, without knowing a thing about 
their diseases } Well, now, I Ve seen Christiai) 
workers, or Christian blunderers, as I call them, go 
at sin-sick and sin-paralyzed and sin-sore patients, 
and give them all the same sort of treatment, or 
just the kind they happened to like for themselves. 
Such folks may have a good deal of religion ; but 
more sense would improve its quality. Now, I 
know a good, worthy woman, who insisted, one day, 
on going with me to see a dying girl. I felt it in 
me that woman’s mission was not visiting the sick, 
for her religion meant just two things to her (good 
things, only not all religion is made up of), duty 
and solemnity. The girl had been a Catholic ; but 
she had come to love Christ so entirely, that all 


2 


lO 


OUT OF THE IVAYT 


her old superstitions had faded out of her memory, 
and she did not think enough about herself to know 
what she was beside a redeemed sinner. Before 
that day, I had once taken a little child to see her, 
and the child had a bouquet for her. Both of them 
were happy as larks, wondering if there would be po- 
sies in heaven ; talking as if dying was a most joyful 
sort of a journey, with everything glorious. Well, as 
I was saying, I took this woman the day before she 
died. She went up to the bed, and stood as grim and 
stiff as some sort of a detective ; then she heaved an 
awful sigh. Then she said, ‘ You are drawing nigh 
to the tomb.’ I hate that word ‘ tomb.’ Mary open- 
ed her great eyes, and looked her face all over. It 
was not so bright, evidently, as her own thoughts, 
for she shut them up again. * We have all got to 
come to it. It is to be hoped that we shall meet in 
the other world. I — I — are you sure you are pre- 
pared i^’ That was all right, of course, only so 
g7'oiind out. I never forgot the look on Mary’s 
face at that. It was just as if a soul half into the 
golden gate should turn aronnd to answer a ques- 
tion from away off behind in the dark ; but all she 
said was, ‘ I have been so tired lately, but last 
night I heard nothing else but “ Come unto me, all 
ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give 


“ OUT OF THE WA YT 1 1 

you rest/* I am going to him ; I can hardly wait !’ 
Now, if that woman had just smiled her joyously 
on the way, it would have been enough ; but she 
stood there and made moral observations until the 
nurse shut her off as you would a draught of cold 
air. The truth is, if folks are going to get any 
good, or any help, or any instruction from us, or 
comfort, even, they have got to be attracted by us, 
or by what we have to offer. We have got to be 
genuine ourselves, or they will find it out. Then 
we must be careful not to overturn with one hand 
what we want to build up with the other. I know 
a nice girl, pretty dressy, but her heart is all right. 
She teaches a class of younger girls, of the same 
position in society, and I know she does them good, 
for her finery, more or less, does not make any im- 
pression on them. They could have the same. 
Well, that young lady happened to find somewhere 
another girl about her own age, who had run away 
from home, and was going to ruin — a girl who told 
me she never should have taken the first wrong 
step, if it had not been for a passion to wear fine 
clothes. Now, the young lady I spoke of sat down 
one day, and read her the story of the Prodigal Son, 
and talked to her like a sister. The Lord blessed her 
own soul for it, I can’t doubt. But, do you know 


12 


“ OUT OF THE WAY. 


I could n’t tell whether to laugh or to cry when I 
saw those two together, for, you have seen these 
heathenish silver bracelets — all jingling bells — ban- 
gles, they call them. Well, the young lady had on 
seven pairs — three on one wrist, four on the other ; 
then she wore those queer antique ear-rings, and 
pin and belt to match. And that poor prodigal’s 
eyes kept wandering over them, until, I declare, I 
believe she could not make up her mind whether 
she would arise and go unto her father, or whether 
she had not better stay a while longer with the 
swine and the husks, until she got a set of silver 
bangles, too. But dear me ! Who set me up on a 
judgment-seat.? I had better remember, 

“ ‘ The eyes that fix the praise or blame, 

See farther than thine or mine.’ 

I only try to learn from such things what to avoid. 
When you get to the real truth, it all turns upon 
one thing : just how much warm love to the Lord 
Jesus, just how much of his Holy Spirit you have 
in your heart. If we have enough, that will lead 
us into the truth, and we do n’t make mistakes.” 

Both ladies assenting, Miss Hallenbeck, who 
was a prodigious talker when under full headway, 
continued, “ Then again, there are people running 
wild nowadays after mission-work, who had far bet- 


“ OUT OF THE WAY. 


13 


ter stay within their own four walls, and do the 
duties neglected there. Mrs. Nichols — I must tell 
you about her some time — she was grieving the 
other day over a lady who, for the last few years, 
has been foremost in meetings, Bible readings, 
classes, missions here and missions there. She was 
very fluent, very active, wonderfully sympathetic 
and enthusiastic ; only just a little too much given 
to telling everybody about her own remarkable 
spiritual exercises, instead of what the Lord of 
heaven had done for them. In fact,\she declared 
she gave up her ‘whole time and talents to Chris- 
tian work.’ She took a flat for her family, sent 
them to restaurants for their meals, while she went 
ont early in the morning, Bible in hand, letting 
beds and sweeping and shirt-buttons take care of 
themselves. She confessed her husband did not 
like it one bit ; but that was ‘ the cross she must 
take up cheerfully,’ and when her children declared 
mother’s religion had spoiled her, she remembered 
the Bible said, ‘ a man’s foes shall be they of his 
own household.’ She was a Christian, I cannot 
doubt ; but she took her own gait, whether or no ; 
and the Lord let her run until she had to come to a 
dead standstill and look at the evidences of her 
folly, as they came to her one after another. You 


14 


“ OUT OF THE WA Y. 


see, she proposed to do a big work of her own for the 
Lord, instead of simply doing the work he had given 
her to do herself. The husband she promised to 
be faithful to, but cheated of her time and her help, 
deserted her ; four boys have found in barrooms 
the comforts that failed at home ; one girl became 
a low actress, one ran away, one is a chronic invalid, 
from lack of care in sickness. Now the rest of that 
woman’s life must be spent in efforts to redeem the 
time that was lost, and she never can do it wholly. 
Plainly, she was not called to mission-work.”'^ 

“ Well, well ! I can’t regret I used the word that 
has been your text for this excellent sermon,” said 
Mrs. Stuart, but I am sure you will weigh me in 
your balance and find me in some way wanting. I 
might be a Christian blunderer after all.” 

It is not impossible,” said Miss Hallenbeck 
frankly; “but I know you. I have faith in what 
you are. Yes, I would like to initiate you two 
women into some things I am greatly interested in ; 
still they bear the same relation to anything you 
have tried that washing greasy kettles and scouring 
black pots do to embroidering pincushions. Some 
of the sinners I have to do with are dreadfully dis- 
reputable.” 

As neither of the ladies looked dismayed, she 


“ OUT OF THE way: 


15 


tried again, resolved to have them go with eyes 
wide open, if they followed her as a leader. She 
glanced about the flower-perfumed rooms, at the 
tasetefully-dressed friends and remarked : “ I go to 
places that smell very bad and look worse than any- 
thing you can imagine. I have come on contagious 
diseases, and as for vermin — well ignorance is 
bliss.” 

She smiled grimly to see them wince a little ; 
then she added : Of course one can be prudent 
and need not run much risk of contamination, 
though dirt is dirt, and bedbugs are bedbugs, no 
matter how enthusiastic one is. I have been vac- 
cinated and I keep a dress I call ^ my regimentals’ 
for this sort of charity work ; then I pray the Lord 
to have a sort of particular oversight and care of 
my nose and eyes and whole body that I may be 
spared as much as possible. Yes, I would like to 
take you on a trial expedition ; I would risk your 
coming out all right. Will you go for once 

Somewhat to her surprise each lady said, Yes,” 
without hesitancy and then the tea-bell rang. When 
Miss Hallenbeck left them that night she said, 
“ Next Wednesday bright and early I will be here 
after you. I see your yard is full of flowers ; sup- 
pose you should take all we can carry with us ; 


i6 OUT OF THE IVAYT 

they will be good as a disinfectant for you, and be 
like air and sunshine to the people we find.” 

The ladies gladly agreeing she bade them Good- 
night and departed — v/here no one knew ; she sel- 
dom told her address. Patrons had such a trouble- 
some way of running after her, when she wanted to 
be at liberty. 


our OF THE WA K 


17 


CHAPTER II. 

“All our pride of strength is weakness and the cunning 
hand is vain, . . . 

But the heavenly help we pray for comes to faith and not to 
sight, 

And our prayers themselves drive backwards all the spirits 
of the night.” Whittier. 

“ Oh, you are all ready, are you T said Miss 
Hallenbeck, next Wednesday morning when, on 
opening Mrs. Stuart’s front door, she met the two 
ladies in brown linen dresses, so clean and slippery 
that nothing could well adhere to them. “ And the 
flowers too ! Oh, what lilies ! That is splendid. 
Now come on. I do not usually go the way I shall 
to-day; but Tmust do an errand in the city first.” 

“ Where are we going U asked Mrs. Grey, while 
they walked toward a street-car. 

Miss Hallenbeck pointed across the beautiful 
river, remarking succinctly : “To the Castles on 
the Rhine ; I do not want you to sentimentalize 
over them for fifteen years.” 

They rode quite down into the city, where their 
leader did her errand and then guided them down 
3 

I 


i8 


OUT OF THE WAY. 


a side street where at the dock puffed a little 
steamer. She marshalled them on and up aloft on 
the deck, where in a breezy spot under an awn- 
ing, they could see the other passengers as they 
arrived. 

“ Is this a summer boat for pleasure U asked 
Mrs. Stuart innocently ; but the short laugh of her 
somewhat brusque companion gave an answ'er 
without the words: “You two bodies really never 
saw the under crust of society ; you can on this 
boat. There comes the Black Maria, only it is 
white now.” 

A great stage rattled up and a policeman helped 
out one insane and two drunken women, a half- 
paralyzed negro, an emaciated woman with a baby 
in her arms and one clinging to her skirts. These 
were the first-comers of a rapidly increasing throng. 
Some came on foot through the gateway ; half- 
helpless ones were rolled in on chairs ; bedridden 
ones brought in on stretchers. Others limped, stag- 
gered or hobbled on between the boxes of meat 
and barrels of flour being rolled from the wharf. A 
procession of women, bareheaded, barefooted, some 
bold, blatant, wrangling with one another and threat- 
ened by the policeman’s club, some weak with 
drink, one or two shame faced, half of them gray- 


« OUT OF THE WAVE 19 

haired, half in their teens — these were hurried on 
in a troop. 

“ Sent up for disorderly conduct — going to the 
workhouse,” said Miss Hallenbeck, as one of them 
in passing below looked up with a leer. “ Now here 
comes a gang of men, mostly going to the peniten- 
tiary. The boat runs every few hours and the load 
is always the same. Do n’t be afraid, Mrs. Grey, 
all are below. These well-dressed, respectable-look- 
ing folks that you see coming on are those who 
have friends or relatives or may be servants at the 
hospitals or the asylums. Do you see that pretty 
pale-faced woman in black } She comes twice a 
week to see her poor crazy husband. Mrs. Nichols 
(I really must tell you about Mrs. Nichols some 
time) first noticed her; it was one day when 
she saw the tears rolling down the poor young 
thing’s face, as she sat off there alone in the stern. 
She went and sort of nestled up beside her under 
pretence of shading her with her umbrella and she 
got out the whole pitiful story.” 

But time would fail to tell every detail at the 
outset of their expedition. The bell rang, the boat 
glided from the dock, and Mrs. Stuart realized, with 
a vividness that after-familiarity somewhat dulled, 
something of what was comprehended in the inces- 


20 


“ our OF THE WA YT 

sant trips of that steamer, day in and day out, year 
in and year out, and always with its dreadful load 
of sin and of suffering. It seemed so strange to 
think that in the months that were past, when she 
had been reading beautiful poems, paying social 
visits, enjoying art and music and home life, this 
awful caravan had been moving on to punishment, 
to lingering sicknesses, to the Potter’s P'ield. It 
did not make those lovely things wrong, but it 
made these before unrealized things so suddenly 
true. Along with these thoughts came another, 
even more depressing, and she turned quickly to 
Miss Hallenbeck, asking, “ What can 07 ie do } 
What can three or six or twenty do against all this 
avalanche of misery and depravity } Do n’t you 
feel every effort smothered ? Is n’t it like trying to 
sweeten the ocean with lumps of sugar to do good, 
or to try to, with all these 

“ I never come to these islands to do good to 
the many thousands,” said Miss Hallenbeck. “ If 
I did, it would kill me. I only let myself think of 
the worth of one soul, and keep a sharp lookout for 
one that might need me. But I know just what 
you mean. Some nights, when I get thinking 
about it, I feel as if I had been bending over an 
awful rushing river, and had seen human beings 


^^OUT OF THE WAY. 


2T 


caught in, tossed, and whirled, and hurried down to 
destruction, some of them senseless, some horridly 
jesting and crazy, some turning up such pleading 
faces to me. Then I think : Well, now, I know 
there is such a river. Rather than run away and 
hide from the sight of it, I will stand there and see 
it all, if only once in a while there is a hand stretch- 
ed out, or I can get close enough to snatch one out 
of the horror. And then, foremost of everything, 
I do n’t let myself forget to think : If I am sorry 
for them, is not God more so ? If I would do my 
utmost, is he not willing to do the same i^” And 
the dressmaker’s homely face glowed with light 
from within. 

It seemed but a few moments before the boat 
again approached a landing, and a part of the pecu- 
liar crew went ashore, our friends among the num- 
ber. They were within a stone’s throw of one of 
the largest “ castles,” toward which Miss Hallen- 
beck proceeded. 

I will go around the building with you for a 
while,” said she ; “ then I have a few people I want 
particularly to see. While I am doing that, I will 
ask some one of the nurses to show you sick wo- 
men, who will be so glad of your flowers.” 

The ladies followed her over the threshold into 


22 


OUT OF THE WAY. 


the building, noting every object as they went 
through the long halls, stone-floored and freshly 
whitewashed. They passed groups of the same 
sort of people met with on the boat : shiftless, mis- 
erable men, shuffling along to the place assigned 
them at the ‘"office;” pale, decently-clad women, 
bringing sick children, and perhaps a few clothes 
tied up in a bundle ; coarse, noisy ones, running 
hither and thither. 

“Yes, there are all sorts here,” remarked Miss 
Hallenbeck, in answer to a questioning look on 
Mrs. Grey’s face. “ There are often nice, respecta- 
ble folks, who cannot pay for proper care in the 
city ! there are wrecks of drunkenness, and victims 
of every vice, who eome here to die ; there are lazy 
fellows who get in here on the slightest pretext, 
and live on charity. In fact, as a nurse told me, 
there are scores of men and women, who come in, 
go out, and come in a fev/ months after, and keep 
this up for years.” 

They passed along the far-stretching halls, and 
up stairs, passing ward after ward, classified ac- 
cording to the patients, or rather to the nature of 
their diseases. 

“ There are an equal number of male and female 
wards,” said Miss Hallenbeck ; “ but we will go 


“ OUT OF THE WAYT 


23 


only to the latter, I think.” Just then she found 
herself stopped by a double line of women, ranged 
up a short flight of stairs. They had half-boldly, 
half-timidly obstructed the way, in the desire to get 
a flower. 

“No, no,” said Miss Hallenbeck good-naturedl}^ 
“You, who are able to run around and get out in 
the air, do not need these. I save them for the 
sick ones.” Nevertheless, she gave those who 
pleaded at least one. At the top of the stairs 
stood an Irishwoman, with her head so plastered 
up with cloths, that little was seen of her round, 
red face, swollen eyes, and black and blue 
bruises. 

“ Would ye give me a lily, Miss Hallenbeck U 
she asked, in a wheedling tone, stretching out a 
great hand. 

“ Yoti^ back, Kate Mulligan U said the lady. 
“ I thought you were going to such a fine, new 
place, you said. What ails you U 

“’Tis me husband sure. He mashed me en- 
tirely ; it was dead I thought I was when the 
officer come till us.” 

“ Why, you told me you were a widow.” 

“ A widdy is it i*” said Kate, a grin distorting 
her swollen physiognomy. “ Faith, miss, 't is much 


24 ^ “ OUT OF THE WAVr 

the same ; he does be doin’ nothin’ for me to 
spake of.” 

“ Humph,” retorted Miss Hallenbeck, grimly 
surveying Mrs. Mulligan, “ I should say he did 
enough. A fight I suppose ; were you drunk U 

“ Well, I wont desave ye ; ye know I have been 
wakeiike since I came out of the hospital and so I 
took a wee drap for the strengthnin’, and last night 
he put sass on me, a callin’ me by every bad name 
ever he could lay his tongue onto, and I resisted 
like.” 

“Yes, yes, I know all about it. If you will 
drink, you will fight, and if you will fight you will 
certainly keep getting mashed.” 

“’Tis true for ye,” said Kate, philosophically. 
“And now, me dear lady, have ye an ould skirt 
or a pair of shoes or a bit of a sacque, may be ye 
could spare me just to be daycint whin the doctors 
goes around. ’T is not becomin’ in me to be so 
ontidy ; but ye see they fetched me off whin I was 
sort of insensible; so me clothes was all left 
behint me 

“ No, you are strong and able-bodied, Kate, you 
could earn plenty, if you liked and be well-dressed.” 

“ Yes, marm, and the day I come out of this is 
the day I begin, ye may count on it, marm. Hut have 


OUT OF THE WAY. 


25 


ye just the makin’ of a laytle sup o’ tay in yer 
pocket ? I am that gone in me inwards I could 
faint ; there is naught wholesome here for a poor 
body to ate or to dhrink ayther.” 

Miss Hallenbeck shook her head. 

“ Well, thin, may God bless ye all the same and 
kape ye wearin’ yer good cloths whoiver goes bare 
or hungary,” said Mrs. Mulligan with what she 
may have meant for sarcasm or may not; and 
turned on her heel to wait for the next comer. 

“ There is a type of dozens I meet here,” said 
Miss Hallenbeck. “ The first time I saw Kate she 
was a widow and a devout Episcopalian, had 
worked eighteen years in a family that adored her. 
I believed a little she said until she began to beg 
right through hit or miss from a pair of cotton 
stockings to a side-comb, a prayer-book, a water- 
proof, and money to take her to friends in the coun- 
try and to redeem her teakettle that was in pawn ; 
oh yes, and the 'address of some nice charitable 
Christian like myself.’ I have talked to that woman 
until I am discouraged ; for the moment I stop for 
breath, she takes up the subject and out-talks me 
on her own weaknesses. She confesses, repents, 
weeps, reforms right on the spot, then goes out, 
gets 'mashed,’ comes in for surgical attendance, 
4 


26 


“ OUT OF THE WAYT 


and gives me quite a new autobiography. It would 
be ridiculous, if it was not dreadful, to see one so 
low down in the scale of being and thinking.” 

“ She is putting that yellow flower you gave her 
into her knot of red hair,” said Mrs Stuart. 

And see,” added Mrs. Grey. “ Every one of 
those women are putting the flowers in their hair! 
Well, now, I like to think they have some sense of 
beauty, if not exactly of fitness.” 

A sharp-looking girl who stood in a door behind 
them gave a derisive laugh and exclaimed, ‘‘They 
stick a flower in their heads here for a charm to 
keep off sickness ; just as they’d hang up a horse- 
shoe to keep out the devil.” 

When the ladies turned, the girl was waltzing 
down the hall singing a song. 

Miss Hallenbeck, who seemed to find nothing 
that surprised her, went on and they followed. She 
stopped at last before the doors of a large ward for 
women, saying, “ Now you ladies might come in 
here with your flowers, one on each side of the 
room. Do n’t be afraid to talk with anybody you are 
inclined to ; for no one will be likely to repulse you. 
Time goes so monotonously here any new thing or 
person is welcome. I want to go across the hall 
to the ward for consumptives.” 


“ OUT OF THE way: 


27 


A little while after they separated, Mrs. Grey 
noticed a young girl about nineteen years old sit- 
ting between a bed and an open window. She had 
a fair smooth face, quantities of light, tightly-curl- 
ing hair, and was decently dressed. Something 
about her interested Mrs. Grey, who approached 
and offered her a couple of roses. She took them 
with thanks, saying that it was good to see any- 
thing bright and pretty there. 

You like flowers ; perhaps you have lived in 
the country U 

“ Yes, before I came to New York.” 

“ And how long ago was that ?” 

I left Germany when I was not quite fifteen.” 

“ Left Germany ? Why you speak very good 
English.” 

“Yes, and as good French,” said the girl, with 
no apparent pride in the fact. “ I was three years 
in a boarding-school there.” 

“ You have come a long way from home,” said 
Mrs. Grey gently. “ Have you relatives or friends 
here ?” 

“ Relatives — yes.” 

Something non-committal in her tone and a 
certain hardening of her expression noted by the 
lady, made her return to talking of the flowers and 


28 


“ OUT OF THE WAY. 


then of Germany again. She soon saw that the girl 
was not averse to talking of her childhood, and her 
I story bore inherent evidences of truth. She described 
the pretty little village where she was born, her 
brothers and sisters, the death of her father which 
left them poorer than they had reason to expect it 
would. She did not allude to her mother but once 
or twice ; when she did, her eyes, which were a little 
cold and distrustful, softened and even seemed bluer. 

“ Poor girl !” said Mrs. Grey sympathizingly. 
“ How hard for your mother to think of you now, 
sick and with such surroundings !” 

“ She does not know it,” confessed the girl, half 
unwillingly. 

Oh ! you keep it all from her when you write. 
Well, your letters must be a great comfort to her.” 

Trouble, anger (not toward Mrs. Grey), rebellion, 
a flash of longing passed over her features, then 
they settled back into hard indifference as she an- 
swered, “ I never write to her.” 

A woman more curious and less really interested 
than Mrs. Grey, would have pressed her inquiries 
then, and perhaps been rebuffed, perhaps deceived 
by half-truths or a story wholly false. Mrs. Grey, 
instead of questions, fell to talking in a pleasant 
womanly way of sickness and trouble, of absence 


^‘OUT OF THE WAY. 


29 < 


from dear ones ; but of God’s care and mercy ; of 
Christ, who is a friend that sticketh closer than a 
brother. Evidently the manner as much as the 
matter of her talk touched the girl ; for she listen- 
ed with respect and a certain surprised attention. 
Mrs. Grey took up some embroidery that lay in her 
lap and admired it. 

“Yes, 1 can do all kinds of such work ; I learned 
at home.” 

“ Have you been here long, I mean in the hospital?” 

“ Two months.” 

There was a stolid acceptance of circumstances, 
quite different from cheerfulness about her whole 
demeanor, which puzzled Mrs. Grey. Her hands 
were small, white, unused, it was plain, to hard 
labor ; while her language was perfectly correct, 
yet if she had ever had such a childhood as she 
said she had known how dreadful must be her pres- 
ent surroundings, unless she had, in some great 
gulf between the “ then ” and the “ now,” lost all 
sensitiveness. To be sure, the long ward in which 
she had a spot was light and clean and airy, if one 
looked only at walls and floor, but in the bed next 
to hers, so near she could almost put her hand on 
it, lay a woman, in a horrible stupor succeeding an 
attack of delirium tremens. 


30 


“ OUT OF THE WA Y. 


Mrs. Grey shuddered as she looked down the 
long double row of cots and saw faces that (so it 
seemed to her) told all the evil of as many lives. 
Looking back at the girl by her side, her heart 
filled with pity, with a desire as well to help or to 
save her from what she scarcely knew as yet. She 
did not realize how intense and penetrating was 
her look, until for the first time, the girl’s eyes 
filled with tears. 

“Josephine, have you anything here to read i*” 
asked the lady simply. 

She glanced up quickly at the sound of the 
name, then saw that Mrs. Grey had read it from a 
card over her bed. With an impulse to speak the 
truth in everything to this stranger, she said, in a 
low tone, “ My real name is Elsie. I should not be 
in here if I had not belonged among — these — but I 
have not been like them either,” and she gave a 
fierce contemptuous glance around the room. 

“ No,” she added, in a different tone, “ I have 
nothing now to read, or only an old paper once in 
a while.” * 

“ Would you read books if you had them 

“ Indeed I would, gladly. I sew all the time for 
the nurses, to keep myself doing something.” 

“ Well,” said Mrs. Grey kindly, “ I will come 


OUT OF THE WAY. 


31 


again and bring you some books. If you are here 
long I can be your friend and can help you perhaps.” 

She did not say in what way ; she did not know 
herself. She certainly never thought that she had 
already made any impression for good on the girl ; 
but when she went away Elsie found a bottle and 
filling it with water put in her roses ; then she 
turned her back on the scene behind her and look- 
ing out over the sun-illumined water and the soft 
blue sky of the May day — Elsie thought. She had 
not thought really for a year or more. She had 
raged and sinned, and sullenly felt remorse — never 
repented. She did not repent to-day ; but she did 
think, and it was of the future. It may seem a 
thing impossible ; yet this sometimes stubbornly 
indifferent, sometimes reckless girl had all her life 
long neglected to think of the future. We mean 
her future in this world — of any other Elsie had so 
little idea that she was even more uninterested. It 
came to her dully, heavily now, that she had lost a 
future, thrown away her life before it came to her, 
if such a thing could be. Only one thing she could 
let herself dwell on contentedly : this was that the 
great ocean rolled and tossed between her and the 
clean, sweet German home, the pure, simple-hearted 
mother, who would gladly have died rather than 


32 


“ OUT OF THE WAYT 

send her little yellow-haired girl into the great city 
of America, had she once heard tell the half that 
Elsie had known, seen, and lived through. 

But where was Mrs. Stuart in the meantime 
She had distributed her flowers and had gone across 
the hall into the consumptives’ ward, in order to 
rejoin Miss Hallenbeck. Entering the room, she 
saw the latter reading to a woman who was evident- 
ly near death. Unwilling to interrupt her she sat 
down in a great wooden chair, which stood by the 
table where the nurse kept her roll-book, in which 
was the name (or a name) of all who came in or went 
out. The sunshine streamed in broad bars over the 
clean scrubbed floor. The open windows kept the 
air pure ; a great hanging basket filled with luxuri- 
ant vines hung where the eye, tired of everything 
else, might rest — yet, at the best, the place was 
gloomy. Over each bed some visitor had left a 
printed text in large bright letters and Mrs. Stuart 
was interested in noticing how the inmates of the 
many beds had used them. Some were carefully 
secured against any danger of blowing away or of 
being soiled. Some were bottom side up, as if 
having fallen they had been replaced without a 
thought of their purport. Others were torn off by 
bits, perhaps to light a lamp. A good many were 


“ OUT OF THE WAVE 33 

turned with the Bible verses to the wall and a 
crucifix or rosary hung on the blank side. As she 
sat there, looking at the pallid faces on pillows but 
little more colorless, as she heard the long hollow 
cough or convulsive gasping for breath ; she was 
peculiarly attracted toward a woman in a bed not 
far from where Miss Hallenbeck sat. She was 
about thirty-five years old, English or possibly 
Irish, she thought, but with a most gentle face 
and large clear eyes, that were full of expression. 
She had raised herself on her elbow and was eager 
to catch, above the incessant coughing, the words 
that were meant for Miss Hallenbeck’s listener in 
particular. As the latter read promise after prom- 
ise of cheer and consolation, her eyes filled with 
tears, while her lips parted in a smile. A pleasant- 
mannered nurse passing with bottles of medicine, 
detected Mrs. Stuart’s interest in her and said, 
'' That Ellen is a good soul, kind and patient as a 
lamb. She gets weaker, poor thing !” 

I would like to go and speak to her,” said 
Mrs. Stuart, gliding over to her bed and putting 
into her hand the last flower she had. 

Oh thank you,” said Ellen. “ How kind ladies 
are to come here to read and to bring nice things ! 
This is a sweet-william, is n’t it ? Why, I do n’t 
5 


34 


“ OUT OF THE WAYT 

believe that ever I have seen one since I came 
across. My mother had them in our little garden 
at home. There, the lady has stopped reading. 
Oh, it is so good !” said she, dropping back on to 
her pillow. 

“ Then you like to hear such words as these U 
“Oh, I do,” she returned, her eyes full of light, 
her thin hand on her sunken chest. “They are 
sweet. I feel every one here in my heart. Yes, 
someway I can take them right in and know they 
are all tnie and for me. Oh, they rest me ! She 
read here one day, ‘ When thy father and thy moth- 
er forsake thee, then the Lord will take thee up.’ 
Now the blackest sort of days I have are for the 
thinking of my little girl. Her father’s gone five 
years come summer. And when I leave her she is 
all alone. If it is the Lord’s will to take me- I 
haven’t a fear of death ; but oh, think what a world 
this is to leave a slip of a girl in and she to make 
her own way.” 

The light had faded out and left only the tears 
in Ellen’s eyes ; and so Mrs. Stuart, sitting close by 
her on the little stool, such as stood by each bed, 
asked, “Where is the child V 

That was the key to unlock all Ellen’s confi- 
dences, and she was soon pouring out her simple 


OUT OF THE WAY. 


35 


story, which we give condensed. She was so 
modest, so sincere and gentle, though evidently of 
humble birth and of little or no education, that she 
pleased Mrs. Stuart much. 

“ You see he was a carpenter (my husband was), 
but he was killed by falling from a great height in a 
new house that he was building. This left us all 
alone — me and the child, who was only five years 
old ; but folks were very kind to me — someway 
they always are ; and I got sewing ; for I was not 
strong enough to do washing. Thank the Lord we 
could keep warm and clean, and got enough to eat, 
while little Mary never ran the streets, but kept 
quiet-like and civil, not knowing too much, as poor 
children have to, sometimes. Dear, dear me ! He 
knows best ; but it seemed hard lines when I got 
this dreadful cold that never has let go its hold of 
me. You see, I went with some work one bad 
night, and got wet and waited an hour in a cold 
basement hall, before the lady would pay me, or, to 
tell the truth, before she refused to. I Ve never 
seen the well day since. Six weeks ago, the dis- 
pensary doctor said it was very doubtful if I ever 
got up, and all my earnings were spent, so I made 
up my mind I must come here, there was no other 
way. I had what was the neat furnishing of three 


36 - OUT OF THE WAVE 

or more rooms, and my husband’s tools, and a few 
bit things I fetched from the old country. I gave 
every one to a woman, who promised me solemnly, 
a-knowing God heard her, that she would be good 
to my Mary, and keep her safe till she could put 
her at some honest work where no evil will harm 
her ; but oh, my heart aches ! It aches to kill me, 
sometimes, for the child. O marm, just since I ’ve 
come here they do tell me, and I see myself, that 
thete are young things so bad, so knowing in wick- 
edness ! O God, save her ! She was never out of 
my sight an hour, and I miss the voice of her, and 
the nice lovin’ ways, for, if she was my very own 
child, marm, I know she was a good little one. If 
I could only just see her once more ! but the woman 
cannot leave her work to be running here, and I 
would never let that innocent thing make her way 
to me on that awful boat. O marm, you do n’t 
know what she might hear ! Why, there be around 
these buildings men and women so wicked, they 
can’t be satisfied with their own sins, but they must 
poison-like and fill the heads of them as don’t 
know any evil, and they fling wickedness at them, 
and talk it where they must hear. All that nurses 
and doctors and priests and chaplains might do, 
can’t help it.” 


OUT OF THE WAVE 37 

“ Where is your little girl ?” asked Mrs. Stuart. 

“With Mrs. Catharine Rian, 106 street.” 

“Well, Ellen,” said Mrs. Stuart, “you do not 
know me ; but I think you can trust me, if Miss 
Hallenbeck tells you that she is my friend. Now, 
I will go and see your little girl, and tell you how 
she is getting along. I will bring her to see you, 
and know that she gets safely home again, if it will 
be such a great pleasure to you.” 

Mrs. Stuart expected that she would be pleased, 
but was unprepared to see such perfect delight as 
Ellen manifested. “ Oh, if you would ! If you 
could !” she cried. “ Oh, how good God is, and how 
good people are that love him !” 

“ How do you know I love him U asked Mrs. 
Stuart, smiling. 

Ellen answered instantly : “ People who have 
everything themselves, do n’t leave pleasant places 
and go around trying to help sick and wicked folks 
in places like this, if they have not soft hearts, and 
think about our blessed Saviour.” 

As Ellen spoke a string of beads slipped out 
from under her pillow; she picked them up on her 
thin, white fingers and replaced them. 

“ Are you a Catholic .?” asked Mrs. Stuart, con- 
cealing her surprise. 


38 


OUT OF THE WA Y. 


‘^Well, I always call myself so,- of course ; but 
the priest is angry at me. He says I am not and 
he talks very sharp and argues about things that 
make my head ache. May be it is wrong ; but I 
let them slip and lie here and think over things 
that come to me, I can’t hardly tell from where. 
Oh yes, all my folks were Catholics at home, and I 
always was in the church ; but I was younglike and 
did not think of my soul anyway, not then nor much 
after, until my man died. When I got this sick 
stroke I had to lie in bed about all last summer. 
Well, next to where I lived was a church, and I know 
now it was not a Catholic one. Summer evenings 
and every Sunday, the windows being wide open, I 
heard prayers and prayers and preaching and easy 
lectures like, not a bit hard to understand, and beau- 
tiful, beautiful singing. I listened to all of it. Oh, it 
was so good ! Why I should have supposed the priest 
would have liked it. I learned a great deal more 
than I knew about Jesus Christ our Lord, who died 
for us and all that ; even little Mary understood it 
too. I heard a man in there, one hot evening, talk 
sort of discouraged because so few people came out. 
He said he was afraid they were not doing any good. 

I laid there and laughed to think how foolish that 
was in him and thanked God they were and right 


OUT OF THE WAY: 


0 


through two stone walls and two open windows at 
that. Why that very man’s prayers had, time and 
again, made me feel so happy thinking about God’s 
love and forgiving my sins. Queer, was n’t it ^ I 
never seeing his face and never going to, unless it 
will be to tell him about it sometime in heaven. 
Well, then, I came here, and off and on that good 
old maid ( I beg your pardon I do n’t mean any dis- 
respect, only she is just as plain as she is kind), she 
comes in here and reads to Mother Humphry. I 
always listen and, when she goes away, I say, over 
and over, things she has read. Nights they come 
back to me ; and if it were not for little Mary’s be- 
ing left I would be glad to go any minute. Every- 
thing beyond seems light to me lately. Oh yes, I 
am a Catholic of course. This little rosary I love so, 
because my mother got it at a fair and gave it to 
me when I was a bit of a girl, and she held it her- 
self when she died. I do n’t very often pray the 
prayers with it, because — well, I have not much 
time and I like to tell our blessed Saviour every- 
thing about myself and Mary before I go. No, I 
do n’t know why the priest is so cross to me and 
scowls.” 

“ Ellen,” asked Mrs. Stuart tenderly, “ how do 
you know you are going to heaven U 


40 


O UT OF THE WA Y. 


“ Because — why see those words over there on 
the wall : ‘ God so loved the world that he gave his 
only begotten Son that whosoever believeth on him 
shall not perish but have everlasting life’ — why I 
believe that with all my heart. Father O’Donevan 
took away the paper card over my head ; he said 
the red letters drew the flies. It said on that : 
‘ Him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast 
out.’ ” 

Ellen had evidently not a desire to ask if Mrs. 
Stuart called herself Catholic or Protestant ; and 
the latter seeing well enough why the priest was 
“ cross,” was inexpressibly touched to see how rap_ 
idly a soul had drifted away from superstition, how 
unconsciously the relics of the old faith were disre- 
garded, how Christ had become all. In the time 
when the soil was ready, God had sent seed meant 
for other souls unto this one ; it had sprung up 
qnickly and was bearing fruit. 

I must go now,” said Mrs. Stuart, seeing Miss 
Hallenbeck arise ; but do not fear that I shall for- 
get little Mary ; for I shall not.” 

The look that Ellen’s face took on at the mere 
thought of seeing her child, made Mrs. Stuart re- 
solve to gratify her, whatever trouble it might cost. 

At the door they met Mrs. Grey and all together 


OUT OF THE WAY. 


41 


hastened down stairs ; for some one told them the 
boat was just in ; and this was the hour they meant 
to return. As they came out of the great stone 
building, they were amazed to have nearly three 
hundred young men rush by them like the wind — 
coat-tails flying, hair blowing, hats held on, all of 
them intent on getting from the boat to some other 
point, within the shortest possible time. Miss Hal- 
lenbeck retreated and let them sweep by her, while 
she regarded them with a grim look which seemed 
to say, “ I suppose it 7nust be all right, but I doubt 
it.” 

“Humph,” she exclaimed, as the last one sped 
by, “I would like to know how many of them cree- 
ier'S there are loose.” Miss Hallenbeck was some- 
times ungrammatical when emphatic. 

“ CreeterSy Miss Hallenbeck echoed a fine-look- 
ing, dignified gentleman, following in the wake, and 
who gave her a quizzical look. 

“ Yes, they are creatures a’ n’t they fellow-crea- 
turfes, if you like that better. Doctor D .” 

“ Well, you ought to love them,” laughed the 
professor walking on after his troop. 

“Humph,” she repeated love three hundred 
medical students, maybe I ought to ; but I don t 

just like those chaps, one bit and he knows it. Prof. 

6 


42 


“ OUT OF THE WAVE 

D does. He brings them up to a clinic. Now I 

do, in reason, suppose that there can’t be thorough 
experienced doctors in the world, without their be- 
ing these raw young sawbones first in their proper 
time; but I can’t abide ’em, that is a fact. Think 
of that host there let through peaceful communities 
to bleed and blister and physic, until they learn the 
best way. I wish they had to be shut up to exper- 
iment on ca4s and dogs and wornout car-horses, and 

so I told Dr. D once on the boat,” said Miss 

Hallenbeck, who was an individual with strong 
prejudices. 

“ What did he say U asked Mrs. Grey. 

“ Oh, he said he did not think it would answer 
all the ends required in practice to restrict the 
youths in that manner; that is just what he said ; 
and he asked me, besides, when, for instance, would 
I have a young doctor stop with a pussy-cat and 
begin with a sick baby. I told him just the min- 
ute the fellow got so skilful that he did not kill the 
cat And that is just what / said.” 

By this time they were seated in the boat, and 
moving gently toward the city. 

“ Well, now,” ejaculated Miss Hallenbeck, after 
a long pause ; “ you have seen that place, and you 
never need go there again.” 


OUT OF THE WAY. 


43 


‘‘ Oh, but I want to !” exclaimed each lady at 
the same moment. 

“ I promised a young girl to take her something 
to read,” said Mrs. Grey. 

“ Oh, I must tell you about a woman right be- 
hind where you were reading,” put in Mrs. Stuart 
eagerly — so eagerly, that Miss Hallenbeck, looking 
at them, laughed heartily. 

She continued to laugh at intervals ; then she 
said, “ You were faint, you know you were, Mrs. 
Grey, when we passed through that room where the 
carbolic acid was so strong. I saw you plunge your 
nose into your flowers and turn very white.” 

I can’t help it,” said Mrs. Grey firmly. “ I 
need not go that way again, unless it is necessary ; 
but if anything can be done for that Elsie, a bad 
smell on the way is not going to discourage me.” 

“ And it would be perfectly heartless for me to 
refuse a poor mother one sight of her only child be- 
fore she died, if it cost me so little trouble,” said 
Mrs. Stuart warmly. 

“ Oh, very well, just as you like. I am always 
ready to go with you,” said Miss Hallenbeck. 

And now, perhaps, I had better go and cut that 
silk sacque for Mrs. Price. Yes, I will ; my purse 
is getting low. Oh there, I forgot to run down to 


44 


OUT OF THE WAV. 


the Bowery and see if that poor little widow got 
turned out by that wretch of a landlord. If he did 
put her out^ I was going to get her in a place I 
know of. I ’ll just let Mrs. Price go ; she has 
clothes enough, and her husband will thank me, 
maybe. Oh, but the silk is bought ! Well, I ’ll 
run across and send a young girl I know of in my 
place. She is poor, but she will suit ; she cuts 
beautifully. We part here, do we } Good-by, then.” 
And off walked the dressmaker, no one knew 
where ; but it was extremely probable she did not 
replenish her purse that day. 


“ OUT OF THE WA Y, 


45 


CHAPTER III. 

“ I am only a little sparrow, 

A bird of low degree ; 

My life is of little value, 

But the dear Lord cares for me. 

* * * * 

“ I fold my wings at twilight, 

Wherever I happen to be ; 

For the Father is always watching. 

And no harm will come to me.” 

It was only the first week in June, but it was as 

hot as midsummer need be. Down in street, 

all the old people, the lazy, the half-sick, and every 
individual child seemed at nightfall to spill out of 
the old houses on to the pavement, in order to 
breathe. There was, therefore, going on all at once, 
quarrelling, gossiping, beer- drinking, marble-play- 
ing. and baby-tending. The tall doorsteps of each 
tenementrhouse were full of dirty women, and men 
in shirtsleeves, smoking old pipes. Every window 
was wide open, and those who were within doors 
were sewing or working as near the outer air as 
possible. In room No. lo, of one of the tallest 
houses, a large, vigorous woman was ironing shirts 


46 


OUT OF THE WAY. 


and talking with her neighbor across a hall, this 
neighbor being too lame to get down to the door- 
steps. 

“ Then ye like yer rooms, Mrs. Rian U said the 
latter. 

“Yes; ’t was much better I come here than to 
be payin’ extravagint rint for thim rooms I had. 
They war ginteel, to be sure ; but what for should 
I be a-puttin’ on style whin here there ’ll be the sa- 
vin’ of three shillin’s a week } Then, ye mind, 
do n’t ye, I was tellin’ ye of Ellen McCarroll ? 
Well, I made a rale bargain with thim old traps of 
Ellen’s. ’T was no use for me to be a-storin’ thim, 
so I sold ivery one, and made enough to pay me for 
the kapin’ of the child, for the saison, at least.” 

“But ye do be a-spoilin’ the young one, Mrs 
Rian.” 

“ And how, thin, is that ?” 

“ Oh, wid ye’s allowin’ her foine lady airs, wash- 
in’ her face tin times a day, and all such. Nwer 
does she put foot out of the door, but her hair 
is that sleek that ye ’d think the cat had licked it. 
Did n’t Bridget Gaffiny tell me but yesterday how 
the landlord axed her what was she a-doin’ here, 
when she and your Mag was a-playin’ togither } He 
was after puttin’ complimints on her, like as if she 


OUT OF THE way: 


47 


was a gintleman’s child. It’s not me that ’d be 
a-presarvin’ her hands white for her, and she a beg- 
gar, if the truth is told.” 

“ Oh, I mane she shall worruk,” said Mrs. Rian ; 

“ but she is not altogither tough. She cooks the 
males, and washes the dishes, and tidies up clane. 

I ’ll say that for her, she ’s moighty nate-fingered ; 
but if, as ye say, Mrs. McCarty, ’t is a young miss 
that Mary ’s a-settin’ up for, I ’ll take that out of 
her.” 

Faith, thin, it ’s just that I say,” went on the 
other woman, secretly vexing Mrs. Rian by assu- 
ming that little Mary was better-looking and bet- 
ter-behaving than any of the five red-headed scape- * 
graces that made up her own family. 

“ Ye better get rid of her as quick as iver ye 
can,” was the neighborly advice; “or, the first 
thing ye know, she ’ll be carryin’ off the chances of 
good wages and favors away from yer own.” 

To this Mrs. Rian made no answer, but soon 
remarked crossly, as she put down the heavy iron 
and folded the last shirt : “ Oh, but it is hot. How 
I do be a-dreadin’ the walk across town wid these. 

I ’m bate out wid the hate.” 

“Sind Mary wid urn ; she’s had no big job the 
dav, has she U 


OUT OF THE WAYT 


4S 

“No, but the basket is purty heavy, and the 
young one is — !’ 

“ Too del-i-cate for ony work,” laughed the other 
hatefully. “ Yer a soft one, Mrs. Rian. Wait till 
yer own Mag is tin years old and we’ll see if ye 
spare her.” 

Mag now at eight could have knocked all the 
breath out of Mary ; but facts were facts and 
if at ten Mag would carry clothes why not Mary 
now } 

“ Maybe ye are right,” said Mrs. Rian, not quite 
able to forget that she had promised Ellen to keep 
Mary out of the street after dark. At that moment 
the neighbor was interrupted, and soon after Mick 
and Pat and Zed came squabbling up the stairs 
and along the hall, much like rat-terriers, snapping, 
snarling, and gyrating around Mary, who kept her 
feet with difficulty, because she bore Mrs. Rian’s 
youngest, a monstrous baby, in her arms. Mary 
was indeed very attractive ; her soft gray eyes 
looked shyly out from under dark lashes, and her 
skin was so fair the blue vein showed on her temples. 
Her clothes were old but very clean, and she wore 
shoes and stockings, which last fact was to bring 
instant disgrace upon her, for when Teddy and 
Mick gave a simultaneous lunge under her at Pat- 


OUT OF THE WAY. 


49 


rick, she stepped by chance on the latter’s thumb. 
He changed base rapidly and attacked her with 
howls of rage ; the baby being broad and Mary 
thin, the former suffered assault first, joined the 
uproar, and the din was deafening. Now when 
Mrs. Rian found out the first cause of offence, she 
declared she would have no more of Mary’s wearing 
shoes and stockings every day when every little Rian 
she possessed went barefooted. 

Here be I,” she cried, getting more irate as 
scolding naturally heated her. Look at me slavin’ 
myself to kape the likes of ye in illigance ; ye shall 
jest help bring in a penny from this day forth. 
Heft that basket, will ye ?” 

As a matter of a moment, Mary lifted the basket 
of clean clothes with no trouble. 

“Now, thin,” said Catherine Rian, not without 
some compunction, “ I ’m dead tired, and so I want 
ye to fetch that over to Grand street and leave it at 
Mrs. Nelson’s. If it is a trifle heavy, why ye can 
just drop down a bit on some steps or other and 
rest yerself. Only mind ye nobody touches finger 
to these shirts.” 

“ I — I go — alone — to-night !” said Mary, her eyes 
darkening with fear. “Why I could not get back 
until after nine !” 


7 


so 


“ OUT OF THE WAYT 

'' And what o’ that, sure ! Is yer pocket full of 
gold that anybody will lay hands on ye ?” 

“ Oh, but the alleys are full of ugly boys and 
there are drunken men and streets so full of every- 
thing.” 

“ Look ye here, girl,” stormed Mrs. Rian. “ Do 
ye think ye’re a growin’ up wid a Frinch nurse to 
walk out wid ye and by-and-by a carriage and a 
coachman. ’T is true for ye, ye ’ve been too much 
made of whin, not to be too particular about con- 
fessin’ it, ye are just naught but a beggar, wid ye 
own mother, poor soul, a-dyin’ over among the 
paupers. Pick up that basket and out wid ye before 
I get that mad at ye I ’ll do something hasty.” 

In truth she meant before she relented ; for the 
thought of Ellen again made her uncomfortable, 
but the meddlesome neighbor across the hall, shout- 
ed out, “ That ’s sinse out of ye at last, Mrs. Rian,” 
and Teddy and Patrick leered with delight at Mary’s 
evident fear of the expedition. The tears so blind- 
ed her eyes Catherine had to find her straw hat for 
her ; then carrying the basket herself down to the 
door, she started the child, saying a little soothing- 
ly, “ If me Mag was about I ’d make her go too 
but Mag was not about, and had she been it is 
doubtful if she would have been much of a comfort. 


“ OUT OF THE WAY: 


For a few streets all went well ; the basket was 
heavy, but still Mary managed it, and best of all, it 
was not yet dark, the days were so long this time of 
year. Her troubles began soon enough, however; 
for her wrists began to ache until they felt numb ; 
the heavy weight drew on her little back and 
shoulders until she was forced to sit down on a 
doorstep ; but hardly had she done so, before a set 
of little ragamuffins made her a target, at which to 
fire the contents of an ash-barrel. Lumps of coal, 
stale bread and potatoes, an old shoe, and last of all 
a dead kitten came flying over her head or into her 
lap. 

Seizing her basket, she hurried away from her 
tormentors only to meet a more respectable (.?) crew, 
who set a Spitz dog upon her. It was quite dark, 
when breathless, perspiring, her heart beating like 
a trip-hammer, she reached the Nelsons’. Her 
clothes were for a boarder on the top-floor, and 
when she mounted to his room it was locked and a 
chambermaid sent her down again, with her basket 
to wait in the kitchen. The cook, vexed with the 
maid, sent her up once more ; and she might have 
been kept vibrating between attic and basement, 
until such time as the boarder returned, had not the 
landlady discovered her panting on a landing, and 


52 


OUT OF THE WAY: 


taking charge of the clothes started her home. 
Mrs. Rian would have been perfectly sure that 
Mary had been foolishly brought up had she known 
the terror of that walk, or rather run, through 
narrow streets, whose noises were dreadful to her 
because so new at this hour. In every area- way 
she suspected danger, and did in reality encounter 
brawling women, drunken men, and worst of all 
those many malicious boys, who divined by a sort 
of fiendish instinct that she feared them, and so 
pounced on her the instant she appeared. It was 
nearly ten o’clock when she turned up the long 
crowded doorstep and hurried to Mrs. Rian’s new 
apartments, which seemed so dreadful to her, after 
the last old-fashioned cosey nest near by the old 
church. 

The children were asleep and Mrs. Rian was 
hanging half out of the window refreshing herself 
after the day’s work. She spoke pleasantly to 
Mary and gave her a penny bun she had sent Pat 
to buy for her, adding, “ There is bread on the table 
if ye want more, and a drink of tay. Nothin’ hurt- 
ed ye, did there } I ’ve no wish to put onything 
wrong on ye, child ; I ’d do the same by me own ; 
’t is not always ye ’ll have to go eyther. Now ye 
can go up and slape on the roof, if ye like.” 


OUT OF THE WAYT 


53 


Mary did like.” The closet she otherwise 
shared with Mick, Teddy, and Mag, frequently Pat, 
was very like a small oven redolent with everything 
cooking therein ; so she much preferred taking her 
chances for sleep on the roof with the sky for a 
coverlet, Ellen would not have been pleased with 
this, for a whole community from the tenement 
were of the same mind as Mary and shared the top 
with her; but as yet no evil had come nigh her. 
To-night she stretched her poor little tired limbs 
on the old straw bed she had brought up, but sleep 
forsook her for a time. Mrs. Rian’s words about 
beggars and paupers did not greatly trouble her; 
she was too young and simple to understand them 
bitterly ; but her mother was “ dying,” was she ? — 
going to be still and white, and cold, in a coffin, like 
the father she dimly remembered, who never came 
back any more — and she, was she going to belong 
to Mrs. Rian, who was so loud and disorderly and 
would make her take heavy baskets for ever and 
ever ? 

No wonder she cried herself to sleep and for- 
got her childish prayers. But the Father in heav- 
en did not forget her, although she was just 
one little miserable one among thousands and thou 
sands of others. Neither did the poor mother in 


54 


OUT OF THE WAYT 

the hospital forget her ; for while the night lamp 
burned low and the great ward was silent she waked 
and prayed for Mary. 

“ Though small we are never forgotten, 

Though weak we are never afraid, 

For we know that the dear Lord keepeth 
The life of the creatures he made.” 


V 


OUT OF THE way: 


55 


CHAPTER IV. 

“ If you cannot speak like angels, 

If you cannot preach like Paul, 

You can tell the love of Jesus, 

You can say he died for all.” 

“ Well, it is downright hot, is n’t it ?” exclaimed 
Miss Hallenbeck, dropping into a seat in Mrs. 
Stuart’s parlor, about a week after the date last 
mentioned. “ I came for you early, so as to have 
time, to get rested. I had to go and see Mrs. 
Nichols first I declare that woman means just 
one Bible verse to me and this, ‘ Charity never 
faileth !’ ” 

“ Now do tell us who Mrs. Nichols is,” said Mrs. 
Grey. *‘You are always going to tell; but never 
have.” 

“ Who is she T echoed Miss Hallenbeck. 
“ That is what I would like to know myself, and 
plenty of other people would. I only know what 
she is.” 

“ She is a lady, is she not asked Mrs. Stuart, 
a little vaguely. 

“ A lady,” again echoed Miss Hallenbeck crisp- 


S6 


OUT OF THE WAY.” 


ly. “ There are two sorts : one you can make 
right up out of a camel’s hair shawl, a diamond 
ring and a weak back — she is not that sort ! As 
many as twelve years ago, I used to hear of Mrs. 
Nichols. In hospitals and prisons and everywhere 
among the sick and the wicked, I was always com- 
ing across people, who had been helped in body 
or soul by her ; but I never could catch a glimpse 
of the woman herself. I could not think of any- 
thing but a poem of Horatius Bonar about a life 
that was 

“ ‘ Like the fragrance that wanders in freshness, 

When the flowers that it comes from are faded and gone. 
So would I be to this world’s weary dwellers. 

Only remembered by what I have done.’ ” 

Miss Hallenbeck paused and fanned herself. 
She was always quoting such scraps of rhyme, al- 
ways with a good purport were they, if not the rarest 
poetry. 

“After I had come to be curious about her,” 
she continued, “ I saw her one day. I heard that 
a big brute of a fellow, who had a wife and little 
baby, was on a spree. I went off to see if the 
woman had anything to eat and when I went up 
the stairs, I heard the man rushing around enough 
to kill. I hurried along, pushed open the door. 


‘‘ OUT OF THE WAYT 57 

and this is what I saw : The woman huddled 
up in a corner, holding her baby close, and that 
half-crazy fellow flourishing around with the big 
wooden arm of a chair, he had broken. A little 
slim woman dressed in black, with a queer qua- 
ker bonnet fallen back off her hair that was turn- 
ing silvery, stood right up holding that man’s wrist, 
as if he were a big boy, and saying with a soft 
voice that had a ring to it though, ‘John! John! 
Thee must stop this. I tell thee give me that 
club ! ’ 

“ She took it right out of his hand and walked 
him over to a bed and told him to lie down and be 
still ; then she showed me how to help fix the 
woman and baby nice and comfortable, and just as I 
got things all settled enough for me to gratify my 
curiosity about her, she was not there. It was 
exactly as if she had gone suddenly up the chimney 
like a whiff of smoke. For a year or two more I 
was always finding her work, but never her ; but at 
last, when I got to going so often to the hospital, 
I saw her more frequently; she has done me ever 
so much good without ever knowing it, but as to 
who she is I can not tell.” 

“Did you ever ask her.?” laughingly inquired 
Mrs. Grey. 


8 


58 . 


OUT OF THE WAY. 


“Not squarely, I could not; for I have often 
had her tell me after other questions she did not an- 
swer, ‘ I would rather not talk to thee of this,’ and 
that ends matters. I went to see her this morning 
about a woman over at the hospital who has been 
sick there for three years and has avowed that 
she was a Christian. She has read her Bible and 
attended Sunday service and Mrs. Nichols had 
hopes of her, though she was ignorant and very 
easily influenced. Well, last week she got a pass 
to go out and see some relations ; she was so much 
better she thought that she was able — and would 
you believe it, she got drunk and had to be fetched 
back on a stretcher. The women over at the 
hospital are dreadfully down on her ; they say she 
is a perfect hypocrite and all that, and wanted me 
to let Mrs. Nichols know, because they said she 
was imposed upon. I told her the whole story ; 
she was so sorry the tears came in her eyes ; but 
she said, ‘ Oh, I hardly believe that Mary is a hypo- 
crite.’ 

“ ‘ But,’ said I, ' can you think, now, that she is 
a Christian V 

“ ‘ I hope so,’ said she. 

“ ‘ What ! a Christian get drunk f 
“ She looked at me so long and queerly, then 


OUT OF THE WA Y. 


said she, ‘ Mary has been very exemplary, now, for 
two years. She has kept from bad language and 
temper and drink ; but I feared a while ago she was 
getting a little self-righteous over it. Now, as thee 
knows, she went out suddenly, off her guard, and very 
weak, physically. The old craving came on as soon 
asshegottired, and she fell. Yes, she sinned.’ Mrs. 
Nichols looked at me, into me, in a way she has, 
and said, ‘ We will immediately condemn Mary, and 
call her a hypocrite, if we do not know of any 
Christians outside of hospitals who ever fall into 
sudden temptation and yield. Are there any well- 
to-do people in our churches who are not put out 
for every relapse 

“ ‘ Well, it sounds sort of dangerous,’ said I, ^ to 
admit such things — is like laxity and letting down 
of barriers. Why, they said, when they brought 
Mary in and rolled her off the stretcher — one of 
the doctors laughed and said, “ Here is a saint who 
went out into the wicked world, and it was too 
many for her.” ’ 

“ ‘ Yes,’ said Mrs. Nichols, ‘ but all there is to it 
is this : If she was not a Christian, we must go to 
work at the beginning again, and try to show her 
hoW' to become one ; and if she was one, and fell, 
why, she must be restored.’ 


6o 


OUT OF THE WA YT 


‘ How many times would you put your faith in 
her ? How often have her brought in drunk ?’ said I. 

“ ‘ I never put faith in her. I tell her to put faith 
in Him who says, My grace is sufficient for thee,’’ 
and, if necessary, 1 forgive her seventy times seven.’ 

‘‘Now, if you believe it, Mrs. Stuart, I was 
wicked enough, because that woman looked so 
sweet and peaceful, to long to see if I could not 
stir her up ; so I said, ‘ They say, too, that you 
gave Mary money to buy shoes, and yet that she 
has twenty dollars hidden in her bed, all made by 
selling to the others her “ extras,” as they call milk, 
beer, beefsteak, and things allowed them by the 
doctors when they are ailing more than usual.’ 

“‘Is it possible.?’ smiled Mrs. Nichols. ‘Well, 
does thee not think that is being harder on her 
own stomach than on any one else. I am sure it 
was not dishonest, and it may have been as inter- 
esting to her as keeping a shop.’ 

“ ‘ Maybe she got drunk on your shoe-money,’ I 
said, as a last arrow. She only said, ‘ Perhaps she 
did ! I ought to have bought the shoes myself. I 
erred there, in putting temptation in her way, but I 
did not know she was going to get a pass. Poor 
Mary ! I must go and see her.’ 

“ Well, I gave up trying to stir that woman up. 


V 


“ OUT OF THE WAYT 


6i 


I might as well try to whip honey into a froth. 
They say she is an orthodox Quakeress, and I 
always supposed such were very prim : but she has 
got the heartiest soft little laugh, and laughs it 
someway always at things that would make me 
snap. Yes, just S7tap^ unless grace saved me in 
time. She told me how yesterday (you remember 
how hot it was) she walked across town, over two 
miles, with a wild, flighty girl that she had per- 
suaded to go to a reformatory home. She had her 
all fixed up neat and tidy, and lent her a silk sun- 
umbrella to carry across, because the sun was so 
hot. Well, when she got there, right on the door- 
step, the girl repented, and Mrs. Nichols, turning 
her back on her to ring the bell, she was off like a 
flash, umbrella and all! When the matron that 
minute opened the door, there stood Mrs. Nichols, 
looking up and down and all around for her girl, 
who had utterly vanished. Now here she is up 
bright and early to-day, going cheerfully off to hunt 
that needle in a haymow. Yet she laughed ; may- 
be it was to keep from crying, though. Dear, dear 
me I if it is not time to start, and I have talked one 
steady stream ever since I sat down. If you do n’t 
tire of me before this season is over, I shall be 
greatly mistaken, that is all.” 


62 


our OF THE WAY. 


So saying, Miss Hallenbeck put down her palm- 
leaf fan, and prepared to start out with the ladies. 

On the way to the boat, Mrs. Grey told about 
Elsie, and said, “ I wish I could gain the girl’s confi- 
dence. It seems to me that she might be rescued ; 
she is young, and cannot be so hardened.” 

“About that last, you can’t judge for some 
time ; but get acquainted with her first,’! said Miss 
Hallenbeck. “ It is utterly useless in personal 
work for individuals to take one as a representative 
of a class, and to deal with him or her always ac- 
cordingly. Sin conforms itself to character ; and 
to know where to attack the sin that so easily be- 
sets some particular sinner, you must first know 
that sinner.” 

“ I am sure it must be so,” said Mrs. Stuart. 
“ I have often thought there was far too much reli- 
gious talking done, on the principle of a good but 
ignorant old fellow, who would respond most inop- 
portunely in prayer-meetings. He stopped a while 
once, after a mild reproof, but soon after, he shout- 
ed, ' Amen — hit or miss P ” 

“Yes,” laughed Miss Hallenbeck; “so much 
good talk is random talk. The longer I live, the 
more I realize that one single ‘ Thus saith the 
Lord’ is worth everything else. An hour spent 


“ OUT OF THE WAYT 63 

telling people your ideas may. be wasted, when a 
Bible sentence would have been a ray of light 
through a fog of words, and might gradually have 
cleared up everything ahead of them.” 

After a moment, Mrs. Grey spoke of Elsie again, 
and Miss Hallenbeck continued, “ I have given up 
all undue encouragement from any amount of feel- 
ing I may stir up. Such women are, as a rule, ex- 
citable and unstrung, peculiarly susceptible to emo- 
tional appeals. I have seen them cry like children 
at pictures of their former innocence ; do it in real 
sincerity, yet, a few hours later, any visitor, who 
might have left them thinking, as one told me, that 
she had touched chords that would never cease to 
vibrate — such a visitor might find them as hard as 
ever. It is not looking in that will save them, but 
looking up; not tears over the past, but prayers for 
strength in the future. They know far more about 
sin than you can tell them ; they feel its disagreea- 
ble consequences, but not its evil in God’s sight. 
Most of all, they need to awake to a sense of God’s 
loving kindness. By that I do not mean a reckless 
trusting to his mercy for salvation, somewhere and 
somehow, when their course is run. They know, 
as a matter of fact, that they are branded, that the 
good and the pure are far removed from them, and 


64 


“ OUT OF THE WAYT 

think, if they think at all, that the God of the good 
and the pure is the farthest off of all. I try to 
make them feel that he is near and ready to help.” 

After a while, Mrs. Grey said : “ I was surprised 
at one thing. I wondered at the kind way in which 
they reeceived me. I spoke to nearly every one in 
offering flowers, and not one repulsed me.” 

“ Of course they did not,” said Miss Hallenbeck 
energetically. “ Oh, some of them are awful wick- 
ed, there is no mistake about it — bad, bad women — 
and sometimes I get thinking about them, and the 
sin and misery that they represent and which they 
cause to others, and my soul burns with indigna- 
tion. I resolve to come over here, and, standing up 
among them, pour out torrents of Old Testament 
curses against sin and uncleanness. I think I will 
tell them that their steps take hold on hell, and 
God’s wrath will as surely smite soul as body. But 
if ever I do that thing, I shall just have to pounce 
down suddenly on them, without a bit of prepara- 
tion, for just as sure as I go to praying about it, I 
begin to think how all sin is an abomination to 
God. He sees away back behind all lives into all 
hidden things. Who can determine those who are 
the sinners above all in his eyes } Though I do 
declare I am not the least grain sentimental, a great 


“ OUT OF THE IVAYr 


65 


pity comes rushing over me when I remember how 
some of these poor creatures never did draw a 
good, sweet breath of air morally or physically, 
since they were born, but out of dirt and poverty 
and ignorance blundered into the great slough. 
How some of them ran right off dangerous paths 
out of bright, giddy lives into it. Why, then I get 
to thinking, what would the Lord Jesus have me 
say, the Son of God, who has compassion on the 
ignorant and them that are out of the way. After 
asking myself that, I might just as well stay away 
for all the denouncing that I can do. But it con- 
soles me to find that it is pretty much the same 
with the best women that I ever see in that ward 
at work for souls. The more in earnest they get, 
the more they tell of Christ’s forgiveness ; and the 
more they tell of him, the more reverently they 
themselves are treated.” 


9 


66 


OUT OF THE WAYT 


CHAPTER V. 

“ What if this sinner wept, and none of you 
Comforted her ; and what if she did strive 
■ To mend, and none of you believed her strife, 

Nor looked upon her !” jean ingelow. 

“ Good-morning, Elsie,” said Mrs. Grey, com- 
ing quietly up behind her, and sitting down by her 
little wooden stand, on which was the faded remains 
of her last week’s gift of flowers. “ Did you keep 
them all this time U she asked cordially. “ Well, 
here are some fresh ones that will be a great im- 
provement.” 

Elsie’s face showed real pleasure as she hastily 
arose, and insisted upon getting one of the few com- 
fortable chairs for Mrs. Grey, who, as she took it, 
said, “ I have thought of you a great deal since I 
was here, and how monotonously the time must 
pass. You told me you could read English, and 
so I have brought you one of the more interesting 
books in our language — as much so as one of your 
German fairy stories. Have you ever read ‘ The 
Pilgrim’s Progress’ U 

Elsie, in saying No, took the book, with large. 


OUT OF THE WAY. 


67 


clear type, and turning its pages past a few of those 
pictures that will instantly arouse the curiosity of 
children or older people fond of marvels, seemed 
much pleased. She had expected some fine-print 
volume, to make her good,” which process, when 
systematically undertaken, she vaguely supposed 
would of necessity be very tiresome and unpleasant. 

“ It looks very nice,” she said gratefully. “ I 
am fond of reading, but we get nothing here but 
scraps of old papers.” 

“Did you bring a Bible or a Testament with 
you U 

“ No, marm.” 

“ I thought very likely you had not. Have you 
read much in either since you came to America U 

“ I have never even seen an English one open.” 

“ I am very glad then that I brought you to-day 
a little German one. I had a fancy that very likely 
you would remember times at home when you read 
or heard it and it would be better for you than ours. 
Do you remember much ?” 

“ No, nothing scarcely. My mother read it, but 
not I ; when I came here my aunt was a Catholic,” 
said Elsie, without apparent thought that her igno- 
rance was anything out of the way. . 

“Then while you are in the hospital is an exr 


68 


OUT OF THE way: 


cellent time for you to learn a great deal. There 
are beautiful and wonderful stories here and much 
for any one who reads to take and keep. We find 
out about ourselves and our way here in life on 
earth, and what is to come hereafter. i Do n’t you 
remember one story, the Prodigal Son, for instance ?” 

Elsie shook her head. 

“Well, then, just let me read you that and tell 
you a little of the bright beautiful truth in it.” 

Elsie drew her stool a trifle nearer and prepared 
to listen, while Mrs. Grey, as naturally as if picking 
out some choice passage from a story-book, began 
to read the dear old parable. A Catholic, in a near 
bed, scowled, crossed herself, and laid a pillow over 
her ear ; but a haggard woman on the other side 
opened her eyes wide, and a giddy girl scrubbing 
the floor said, “ I heard that once in a ragged school, 
I can just remember.” j 

While Mrs. Grey read she talked, in no preach- 
ing tone of exhortation ; but as easily referring to 
God’s fatherly love for us and our lost and loneli- 
ness when in the “far country,” where his love 
means nothing to us, as she would have called 
attention to the beauty of the fresh flowers that she 
had brought in.. She made no personal application of 
what she had read and Elsie seemed to expect none. 


OUT OF THE WAY. 


69 


She listened intently and when Mrs. Grey ended 
she promised to read in the Bible given her. Why 
should she not ? This story was certainly interest- 
ing ; the days were tiresomely long and coarse 
sewing for the hospital was all she had to occupy 
her time. 

“You spoke about your aunt,” said the lady 
after a while. “ Does she know that you are here U 

“ No ma’am. I do not wish her to know.” 

“Why not.?” 

“ Because I ran away from her and she is very 
angry with me.” 

“ But now that you are in trouble would she not 
be sorry for you .?” 

“ She would be angrier than ever.” 

“Tell me how you came to leave her,” said 
Mrs. Grey, in a tone of gentle persuasion, at the 
same time half doubting, if it were wise to ask and 
if Elsie would tell the truth. 

An expression perplexed, almost abashed came 
over Elsie’s face ; but the manner of her reply 
suggested that however much she might be leaving 
out, that which she was bringing forth was not 
false. 

“ I was fifteen,” she began, “ when I came to 
this country ; but I was like a child. I never had 


70 


OUT OF THE WAY.” 

seen anything or been anywhere but at home and 
to a school. My aunt did not give me a warm wel- 
come at all. She was provoked at my mother for 
sending me to her ; because her husband wanted 
me even less than she did. They had children of 
their own and are all for making money. He has 
a store and they live in a flat over it. She thought 
I ought to do housework every minute, and I never 
had been used to it, and things were so new I sup- 
pose I did waste time looking, and talking, and 
reading, if I had a chance. When she caught me 
at that she would scold and scold and tell uncle I 
was lazy and wanted to be more of a young lady 
than her own daughters. Germans are so indus- 
trious and saving, you know ; but I liked American 
ways better, and I learned them fast — too fast they 
said. As I did not suit her in the house, she had 
uncle put me in the store for a clerk. There were 
all sorts of girls there and I told them too much of 
my affairs so there was never-ending trouble between 
my aunt and myself. She was cross and I am 
quick-tempered. I wanted to go on Sunday excur- 
sions and picnics, and she always declared I was 
disgracing her family — and — and — I ran away.” 

“ How long ago U 

“Two years.” 


« OUT OF THE IVAYT 71 

Where have you been since?” asked Mrs. 
Grey with gentle calmness. 

Elsie looked off and out of the window, moving 
a little awkwardly. “ Part of the time in a fancy 
store, and once I was with a lady as maid, and — ” 

“And some of the time you were in worse 
places ?” 

“Yes, ma’am.” 

With indescribable sadness, Mrs. Grey asked 
her simply, “ Has it paid ?” 

The girl started candidly to answer “ No,” when 
the soul looking out of Mrs. Grey’s eyes, how did it 
move her ? By a memory of the vanished morning 
of her German maidenhood, by a revelation of the 
lady’s own womanhood, by the new hearing of the 
old-time prodigal, who knows ? Only Elsie suddenly 
dropped her head on the near ^pillow and sobbed 
convulsively, for all the answer made. 

“Self-convicted for the moment,” thought Mrs. 
Grey ; “ a bad, bad girl ; but is there no more chance 
for her among the good ? Must she be slipping 
lower and lower through all the degrees of degra- 
dation, until she returns here to be carried out to 
the Potter’s Field ?” 

“ Elsie,” said she, “ will you not tell me where 
your aunt is and let me go to her? If she knew 


72 


OUT OF THE WAVr 


you were sorry and willing to do right, she might 
forgive you for the past and help you in the future.” 

She would be glad to know that 1 was dead ; 
then my mother would never have to know any- 
thing more than that. I feel sure my aunt has not 
told her : because she knows it would kill my 
mother and she might blame my aunt for not doing 
more for me. I do n’t blame her myself. No, it is 
of no use,” said the girl, wiping her eyes, “not the 
least use.” 

“ Did you ever in all your life ask God that you 
might not be led into temptation, or might be delivered 
from evil? Have you ever really prayed and mean tit.?” 

“No,” said Elsie briefly. 

“Well, then, how can you tell what God might 
have done for you, if you had so much as looked 
toward him ?” 

Elsie was less inclined to talk than before, and 
Mrs. Grey, after a few more words, of earnest, yet 
sympathetic counsel, left her and went to see some 
others in the same ward. After she had gone, 
Elsie sat thinking of one thing, if she had not best, 
after all, let Mrs. Grey go and see her aunt. She 
had a desire, that it might be known she was sorry 
for the past ; then if her mother knew the rest, she 
would feel more pity for her. And there was a 


“ OUT OF THE WAY.” 


73 


• f 


bare chance that her aunt, if told now, might at 
least send her a kind word ; that she would do any 
more she had no hope. On the other hand if Mrs. 
Grey went to see her, all Elsie’s evil doings would 
come out ; and strange as it may seem, while Elsie 
herself had, in outline, sketched her life, she dreaded 
to have this true good woman learn the details 
of the whole. Would she have any interest left 
in her ? Any more helpful words ? She looked 
after her with a sort of wistful reverence, as she 
stood over a bed with her flowers. How strange 
and easy and good life must be to her ! 

“Can you sing, lady.?” Elsie heard the sick 
woman ask. “Sometimes folks do, that come in.” 

Softly enough not to disturb any one, Mrs. 
Grey began : 

“No voice can sing, no heart can frame 
Nor can the memory find 
A sweeter sound than thy blest name 
O Saviour of mankind. 

“ Oh hope of every contrite heart 
Oh joy of all the meek. 

To those who fall how kind thou ari ! 

How good to those who seek.” 

Elsie could hear her, although far down the 
ward ; it was not so much the words, but having a 


10 


74 


“ OUT OF THE WAYT 


German’s true love of music, she softened under 
the singing. Somewhat later as Mrs. Grey laid 
her hand on the great door to go out and join her 
friends, Elsie came to her with a folded slip of 
paper saying, “This is my aunt’s address — but it 
wont do any good to go to her.” 

“Never you fear, Elsie; God will open a way 
if you truly look to him ; if you seek him with 
your whole heart ; but he himself says he will not 
hear us while we are planning evil.” 


75 


OUT OF THE WAYT 


CHAPTER VI. 

“ O brother man ! fold to thy heart thy brother ; 

Where pity dwells, the peace of God is there ; 

To worship rightly is to love each other, 

Each smile a hymn, each kindly word a prayer.” 

“Well now, I must allow that the kapin’ of 
that child niver will make a beggar of me,” said 
Mrs. Rian, giving the plate of boiled pork and 
cabbage, which little Mary refused, to Ted, who, 
having eaten his own dinner, was fully equal to any 
body’s else. Mary was not feeling well ; although 
a healthy child, she was delicate. The heat every- 
where was excessive and Mrs. Rian's rooms were 
full of steam on washing days, and like a furnace 
seven times heated on ironing days. The halls, 
the stairways, and the street were as dirty and vile- 
smelling as only a New York tenement-house and 
locality can be in midsummer, and so it came to 
pass that Mary began to wilt and hang her head, 
exactly like a little white-rose bush that somebody 
was trying to make live in a window on the first 
floor. She stopped to look at it frequently and she 
fancied that it felt just as disgusted with its home 


76 


» OUT OF THE WA YT 

as she did. On this particular day, when she could 
not eat her dinner, Mrs Rian declared, not unkind- 
ly, that “her headache was all along of the hate, 
and she better try and slape it off.” 

She made Pat stop teasing her and went about 
her own work thinking that Mary never would be 
able to do much toward earning a living. 

Mary stretched herself on an old cot in one 
corner and tried to put herself to sleep with a cher- 
ished whim of her own. In that last home, before 
P211en was taken to the hospital, she had for the 
child a tiny playground. It was by the church 
wall — a few yards of green sod, where in the season, 
there were ever so many, many yellow dandelions. 
Those dandelions had been Mary’s ideal playmates 
ever since. How many times in her imagination 
had they budded and opened and changed to white 
downy gloves, then floated shattered up toward the 
sky over the church steeple, about the same time 
Mary floated into dream-land. To-day, just as she 
dr a dandelion (half asleep it was all the same) was 
sailing away right over the old tenement-house, the 
child suddenly opened her eyes and getting actually 
awake was very doubtful of being so. A tall, hand- 
some lady, with an airy, summer dress on, was 
pointing toward her and talking to Catherine Rian. 


OUT OF THE WAY. 


77 


Yes, it must be Catherine’s red head, her freckled 
face covered with perspiration and her voice saying, 
“’Tis very kind of yez to be a-takin’ that much 
throuble for a poor body, though ’tis true Ellen 
McCarroll is a good daycint woman.” Then Mrs. 
Rian whisked around the place and from some 
drawer or chest brought out a neat dress, stockings 
and shoes, with a little straw hat Mary had not 
seen since her mother left them in Catherine’s 
care. 

“ Come here, Mary, till I get ye ready. Hurry 
wid ye into these, and go off wid the lady.” 

Mary asked not a question. One look at the 
kindly face of the visitor made her as willing to go 
anywhere with her as to go over the steeple with 
the feathery dandelions. She was ready in five 
minutes to follow Mrs. Stuart down the stairs 
and out into the street, where a carriage and a 
coachman were the centre of an admiring crowd of 
“ gutter-snipes.” Ted and Pat set up shouts of de- 
risive envy at seeing Mary enter the coach and ride 
away. They held on behind as long as possible, 
and then threw decayed vegetables after the disap- 
pearing wheels. Mary’s headache was all forgot- 
ten as they rolled through the narrow streets out 
into an avenue, and then up beyond much of the 


78 


“ OUl^ OF THE WAY. 


noise, and where there was grass, with trees and 
glimpses of water. She talked freely with the lady, 
who seemed to know so much of her mother, and 
who told her she was to go and see that dear moth- 
er again to-morrow. Mrs. Stuart had thought to 
give the child a treat ; but she could not realize 
how perfectly she filled up the measure of delight 
in what she did so easily for her. Too entirely a 
child to reflect that it was only the pleasure of a few 
hours, Mary was only conscious that the carriage 
took her to a home more beautiful than she had 
ever seen, where there was unlimited green grass, 
on which she might anywhere run, a tiny fountain 
to watch, a broad stretch of blue sky and a long 
sweep of shining water to look off upon. Mrs. 
Stuart told her to play out under the trees until 
she called her, and then went into the house to 
send her out a bowl of bread-and-milk, some fruit, 
and cake. If Mrs. Rian’s dinner went uneaten, 
this daintier supplement suffered no such fate. 
The last morsel disposed of, Mary returned the 
dishes to a pleasant servant-girl, and then, finding 
a sleek old family cat with three kittens, she en- 
ticed them all to follow, and roamed about the 
place, taking in pleasure at every breath. Mrs. 
Stuart did not interrupt this enjoyment until sun- 


“ OUT OF THE WA Y. 


79 


set, and then only to call her in, that supper, pic- 
ture-books, and a little talk about her mother might 
fill out this wonderful afternoon in her brief history. 

She had meant to take Mary to her mother the 
next morning ; but, although it proved to be one 
of the most beautiful days of the season, the lady her- 
self awoke with a severe headache, and previous ex- 
perience warned her to remain quietly at home until 
she felt well again. She was glad to find that, 
while Mary was eager to see her mother, the novel- 
ty and charm of her new surroundings were amply 
sufficient to keep her contented. Ellen would not 
be disappointed, not knowing just what day they 
were coming. As Mrs. Stuart rested on the sofa 
in the cool parlor that morning, she asked Mary 
many questions about her past and present. She 
was more and more pleased with the little girl, 
about whom there appeared to be nothing rude or 
coarse. It seemed a great pity to send her back to 
the rough guardianship of Mrs. Rian. She was 
sure that Ellen herself would be distressed at know- 
ing much that Mary artlessly confided to her ; she 
even said to the child, “ When you talk to your 
mother, if I were you, I would only tell her pleasant 
things. She is very sick, and it might trouble her 
to lie there and think about you after you had gone 


8o 


OUT OF THE WAV.” 


away — how you had to go out evenings, and that 
Mrs. Rian’s rooms were so hot. You and I, Mary, 
must pray to our Father in heaven about your 
troubles, and maybe he will make things different 
for you in some way.” 

Mary supposed that she meant to pray imme- 
diately, and dropped on her knees by the sofa in 
such ready simplicity that Mrs. Stuart’s eyes filled 
with tears. Mary was only one of a great army of 
little homeless, friendless waifs, drifting out alone 
into life ; but she was so young yet ! This fair 
summer morning, her eyes were as blue, her hair as 
sunny, as any petted darling’s in the great city. 
But if left to make her way unaided ! Oh, Mrs. 
Stuart knew so much more than she did last sum- 
mer ! It was no wonder Ellen, after a few weeks 
in the hospital, cried, “ God save her !” when she 
thought of pretty Mary, with her heart so innocent. 
She sent the child out to play again, and tried to 
devise some feasible plan for securing her a better 
home than Mrs. Rian’s. 

While the lady meditated within doors, Mary, 
throwing off all care, in a child’s own blessed way, 
went dancing over the lawn, rejoicing again in the 
rare, bright holiday. The forenoon was half gone, 
when the sound of children’s voices attracted her to a 













.4 



# 




OUT OF THE WAV: 


8i 


hedge which divided the neighboring grounds from 
the Stuart place. On the other side was also a 
beautiful lawn and a similar pretty country-house, 
A pale, elegant lady sat in the porch, and two chil- 
dren were playing near her, one a boy four years 
old, the other a girl, just able to run. The boy had 
seated himself in a little cart, and was vainly en- 
deavoring to propel it, somev/hat after the fashion 
of a velocipede. Of course, it only scraped along a 
little way, and ground its wheels deep in the gravei 
walk. Suddenly he espied Mary peeping through 
the hedge, 'and promptly invited her to come over 
and draw him. His mother reproved him ; but, see- 
ing Mary’s pleasant face, and her manner, half-timid, 
half-desirous, she asked her to come and play, if she 
would like to do so. . Mary waited for nothing 
more, crept through the bushes, and drew Rob to 
his heart’s content, even getting little sister Nellie 
safe on as footman, and wearing a bridle and bells 
herself. She was very fond of children, and these two, 
although brimming over with fun and frolic, were 
very different specimens from Mrs. Rian’s fighting, 
scratching youngsters. If these disagreed, it was 
with their lively little tongues, and Mary had a 
chance to act as peacemaker, without any danger 
of having her hair torn out, as formerly, with Ted- 


82 


“ OUT OF THE WA Y. 


dy and Pat as combatants. They had the greatest 
fun until noon, and then Mary was called to have 
her lunch, while Rob was clamorous for her prom- 
ise “to come back the minute she had eaten it.” 

The children’s mother called her to come into 
the porch and asked her a few questions, then she 
thanked her for keeping the children so contented 
and nicely amused all the morning — something 
which seemed very queer to the child, who took it 
as a great favor to have been asked to play with 
them. 

“ What has Mary been doing all the morning U 
inquired Mrs. Stuart, of the maid who had gone to 
call her. 

“ Oh she has had fine times with Mrs. English’s 
children. They are the most wide-awake two I 
ever did see ! Mrs. English asked if you were 
well, marm, when I went to the hedge for Mary. 
She is a very delicate-looking lady.” 

“ She is ill a great deal,” returned Mrs. Stuart, 
thinking to herself that she had not been quite 
as neighborly as she ought to have been. She had 
exchanged calls with the lady spoken of ; had taken 
the children to ride once or twice, and in the spring 
Mrs. English had sent her a few choice flowers. 
This was the extent of their intercourse. As the 


83 


OUT OF THE WA YT 

afternoon wore away, her head felt much better and 
for some reason or other, she kept recurring to the 
thought that she was too negligent in her attentions 
to this Mrs. English. She really did not want to 
go soon again and see her ; but finally acknowledged 
to herself that there might not be another afternoon 
when she could so easily. It was not strange, 
therefore, that a half hour later the two ladies were 
talking together in Mrs. English’s parlor. The 
latter lady was speaking and this was what she 
said: “Yes, I believe there never were two more 
active children than mine, and they are not hard to 
control ; but they want to be watched every min- 
ute and that makes it very hard for me. They 
have the same nurse I have had in the family for 
fifteen years, and I could not get along without her ; 
but she is getting old and is very fat and cannot 
possibly follow them around all the time ; so I have 
had a succession of young girls, and I am complete- 
ly tired out with them. I will not entertain you by 
talking of my * babies and servants,’ although really 
nothing else has occupied me lately. Since I have 
been so out of health I have given up society, and 
when I heard the other day how you were going 
about doing so much good, I felt as if I was just 
shut up at home and good for nothing in the world. 


84 


“ OUT OF THE WAYT 

Wont you tell me all about your going to the hos- 
pitals and what you do over there ?” 

Mrs. Stuart gladly complied and while she talk- 
ed, she was surprised at the interest and sympathy 
she evoked. She was a little self-condemned also ; 
for she had thought her neighbor far more worldly- 
minded than she proved to be. She had supposed 
that Mrs. English was only prevented by ill health 
from being a very fashionable woman ; but to-day 
she learned that she was trying to follow her Mas- 
ter, with many things to clog her steps. She told 
her incidentally about Ellen, and Mrs. English ask- 
ed with genuine interest, “ Was it her child who 
played all the morning over here ?” 

When she heard that it was, she hesitated a 
little and then remarked, “After she went away I 
was wondering if it would not be a good idea to 
take just such a child as this for a second nurse. 
One young enough to invent plays and to play with 
the children. Margaret does all the real work for 
them, sewing on their clothes, and bathing and 
dressing them ; but somebody must follow them 
throughout the day. I have been so tired with 
girls fourteen or fifteen years old ; they get cross 
and fret at the children or neglect them and amuse 
themselves. So many of them have appeared all 


“ O UT OF THE IV A K” 85 

right before me and proved so deceitful .and untrust- 
worthy when left alone a while. It has been sug- 
gested to rne more than once to take a child out- 
and-out, dress, feed, and give it to feel that it had a 
real home. If this Mary is as innocent as she 
seems to be, and of respectable parentage, I should 
be tempted to say I would take her, not in any un- 
defined position, I have seen trouble from that : 
children half-adopted, petted, led to expect an own 
child’s portion, then coldly pushed out or humilia- 
ted. My idea would be to make the child grow up 
knowing we loved it and wanted to fit it for a use- 
ful life. She should be taught all she needed — or 
as much as she wanted to learn in the line of books ; 
how to sew and to do anything about the house a 
woman ought to understand. When she was old 
enough she should have wages ; but never be made 
merely a servant in any such way as to feel that 
her interests- were not ours, or that we did not love 
and respect her, if she proved worthy. If after I 
had taken such a child, I found that she had some 
one decided talent, say for teaching or for music, I 
should feel as desirous to cultivate it, as if I saw it 
in my own child. I have thought often of this, but 
never considered it practicable ; perhaps because 
I never saw a child whom I cared to take into my 


86 


OUT OF THE WAYT 

family before ; even now I would wish to know all 
about Mary’s parents. But really, Mrs. Stuart, I 
am going to talk this all over with my husband to- 
night, and early to morrow I will tell you what 
questions to ask her mother. If everything is 
satisfactory, I think you may tell the poor woman 
what I have said. I am not unselfish in this, for it 
seemed to me, this morning, that Mary had a pecu- 
liar gift for keeping children interested and out 
of mischief, and I was surprised at her good judg- 
ment with them ; but I really want to do some 
good in the world and may be I can in this way. 
You go and carry comfort to a good many poor 
neglected ones ; but perhaps if I can’t do that, 
bringing one into comfort may do for me. . Every 
time I have seen you start for that hospital with all 
those flowers and things, I have thought how self- 
ishly I was living.” 

Mrs. Stuart could not say much, she was so 
overwhelmed by such a speedy answer to her morn- 
ing prayer. She had done so very little to find her 
efforts so abundantly rewarded. It came to her at 
the same time with even greater force how all 
things had “ worked together for good.” Ellen had 
prayed for weeks past and a great reward of faith 
would now be hers even before she left the old hos- 


OUT OF THE WAY. 


87 


pital for all the joys of heaven. The child herself 
had prayed — and most strai^e of all, quite uncon- 
sciously, Mrs. Stuart had been making a more ear- 
nest Christian of her almost unknown neighbor. 
Beginning the work of charity herself, it had truly, 
as Carlyle says, “ radiated outward,” and as may be 
supposed this afternoon visit, undertaken so reluc- 
tantly by Mrs. Stuart, had brought the two Chris- 
tian women together for what might be good im- 
possible to estimate. 

It is doubtful if there was a happier child in the 
city than was little Mary, when next morning she 
started for the hospital with Mrs. Stuart, Mrs. Grey, 
and Miss Hallenbeck. She had on one arm a little 
basket full of delicacies for her mother, and in her 
hand a bouquet as large as she could well manage. 
A clean white apron made her as fresh and pretty 
to the eye as a daisy. The ladies on reaching the 
boat kept her as much as possible away from dis- 
agreeable sights and suggestions in order that her 
recollections of this visit to her mother might be 
only pleasing. When they arrived at the hospital 
the nurse told Mrs. Stuart that Ellen had been fail- 
ing very fast since the weakening warm weather 
came, and that she probably could not last much 
longer ; but she was free from pain and able to talk. 


ss 


OUT OF THE WAY. 


They entered the ward quietly, intending not to 
take her too much by surprise; but she espied 
them the moment they came in. At sight of Mary 
so sweet and happy-looking, her face lit up with a 
positive radiance, while both her thin hands were 
stretched out to greet the child, who dropped basket 
and flowers to nestle down face to face by her, 
laughing, crying, and altogether overjoyed. The 
ladies left them alone for a long time, but a while 
before they were to go away, Mrs. Stuart came back 
to Ellen’s bed and found the flowers all about her 
stand, and evidences that Mary had tried to feed her 
fruit and jelly, while chatting to her of all that had 
happened to her since she saw her last. 

“ God will bless you for giving me this pleasure,” 
said Ellen gratefully, as the lady sat down by her 
side. “ I do n’t believe anybody ever does such a 
blessed thing as you have, in giving me this one 
look at Mary before I go, without God’s remember- 
ing it of her. If ever your heart aches I think 
there’ll be an angel ready to comfort you some- 
where waiting. Your coming here and doing this 
has lifted me way up and out of my fears to leave 
her all alone like in the world. It is God’s world and 
plenty of God’s folks in it, spite of all the wicked 
ones. He can take care of her. I shall not pray 


OUl^ OF THE WAY. 


89 


any more to have her follow me soon ; it is not right. 
She is not so very strong, but it is for lack of good 
air and nourishing food. She comes of a long-lived 
healthy family on both father and mother’s side. 
My man died from an accident and I am the first I 
ever heard of to have consumption. When I came 
to this hospital it was all new to me that there were 
so many ways of getting out of the world with dis- 
eases, with drunkenness and craziness, and things I 
never so much as heard of. I see now, ma’am, it is 
indeed a thing to rejoice over, if ye came of a 
clean, decent-behavin’, healthy race, as, thank the 
Lord, I did. Consumption is wearin’, but it is a 
kind of a neat disease and Ellen smiled, with a 
dim idea of humor in this last thought. 

Mrs. Stuart, who was glad of the turn the con- 
versation had taken, asked her many personal ques- 
tions and assured herself that little Mary had no 
friends to care for her, aside from Mrs. Rian. 
When Ellen leaned back on her pillow, a little ex- 
hausted from so much talking, Mrs. Stuart told her 
all about her neighbor’s plan for the child, and prom- 
ised herself to keep her interest in Mary if Ellen 
should give her up to them. The sick mother could 
only ciasp her hands, while the tears of joy rolled 
down her cheeks. The child had been drawing 
1 2 


90 


OUT OF THE WAY: 


glowing pictures for her of the flowers and the sun- 
shine, and the kindliness she had met with in the 
last two days, and now for Ellen to think that she 
might remain in it all to grow up a pure, intelligent 
girl ! 

God is good ! God is good !” was all she could 
say at first. Mrs. Stuart would not let her excite 
herself, but quietly calling Mrs. Grey, Miss Hallen- 
beck and the Protestant nurse for witnesses, she 
asked Ellen to give before them her full consent to 
the plan proposed — a wise precaution against after- 
influences of possible opposition. When this was 
done the time had come to go away. Mrs. Stuart 
promised to bring little Mary again if it was advi- 
sable and the farewell, which might have been so sad 
for mother and child was almost joyous. Mary had 
just learned that she was never to go back to Mrs. 
Rian’s, never to see the hot foul rooms, never to en- 
dure the rough onsets of Teddy and Pat, never to 
have again to hurry through crowded streets after 
dark, her heart beating with fear of innumerable 
dangers. 

When people put themselves in the way of it,’* 
exclaimed Miss Hallenbeck, as they seated them- 
selves in a retired part of the boat, “ how easy it is 
for the Lord to use them as workers together with 


OUT OF THE WAYT 91 

him, and how wonderfully clear his share of the 
work comes out ! That summer Ellen was lying 
in her bed and hearing the words of life from out 
of the open window of that old church, those work- 
ers in there were all in ignorance of her, and never 
will know, until eternity, that they were fitting, a 
soul outside their walls for heaven. And yotiy Mrs. 
Stuart, by a half-hour one day with Ellen, put 
yourself where God could answer her prayers 
through you. Then there was Mrs. English, whose 
duty lies in staying at home, yet who has seen you 
going to the hospitals, and wished that she could 
do a little more for others. She, being willing, has 
the service for her Saviour brought right to her, 
and as a blessed result of the whole, the fate of a 
child, with an immortal soul, may have been deter- 
mined for good in this world and joy hereafter. I 
do like to get a glimpse of these workings ; it 
makes the world so much less confusing and mel- 
ancholy, lights it all up for the time, and you see, 
as well as believe, that God is weaving human lives 
and prayers, in and out, in and out, for glorious 
effects by-and-by .’7 


92 


“ OUT OF THE WAVE 


CHAPTER VII. 

“ There are, who, like the Seer of old. 

Can see the helpers God has sent 
And how life’s rugged mountain side 

Is white with many an angel tent.” Whittier. 

“ Well, I can assure you I am tired,” said Mrs. 
Grey, as she walked into Mrs. Stuart’s cosey library 
one noontime, and gratefully accepted her invita- 
tion to remain with her the rest of the day. “ I 
started out this morning, with Miss Hallenbeck, to 
go and see Elsie’s aunt, and it has all amounted to 
nothing but fatigue and a good deal of disappoint- 
ment on my part.” 

“Tell me about it, while you sit here by the 
window and rest ; lunch will be ready soon,” said 
Mrs. Stuart. “ Did you not find her ?” 

“ Oh, yes ; Elsie gave me the address all right. 
It was a long way across town, but I reached it at 
last. I found a flat over a store, and asked for 

Mrs. . A bright, pretty girl (Elsie’s cousin, I 

presume) put me into a nicely-furnished room, and 
went for the aunt. She was a good-looking, intel- 
ligent German woman, and greeted me politely. 


“ OUT OF 2^HE way: 


93 


After a word or two about the day, I said that I 
had called to talk a little with her about a niece of 

hers, Elsie . She looked blank a moment, and 

then told me that she had no niece, and knew no such 

person as Elsie . I began to explain, thinking I 

had made some mistake, until, recollecting that the 
name and the address were right, I sat a second 
silent. In that second, I suspected that the sudden 
rigid denial of the woman was forced, a suspicion 
that proved correct, for all at once, getting more 
emphatic, she excitedly declared that she never 
wanted to hear one word about that girl. She was 
a bad, ungrateful, lazy, hard-hearted creature ! 
Since the day she landed in America, she had 
made her no end of trouble. She came of a good 
family, and she had disgraced them all. Her voice 
trembled, her eyes were black with excitement, 
while her imperfect English became more and more 
confused. I saw I had unloosed a tempest that 
must spend itself before I could say a word, and 
so I sat quietly and listened, after briefly explaining 
where I had seen Elsie, and why I came. I do not 
mean that the aunt was rude to me. She was, I 
could see, in spite oT her great excitement, a sensi- 
ble, industrious woman, with a great deal of pride, 
which last she felt had been terribly outraged. 


94 


“ OUT OF THE WAYT 

‘ You see/ said she, ‘ Elsie’s mother sent that girl 
over here without giving me one chance to say she 
shall not come. My sister has the notion, that all 
those people in the other country do for ever get 
into their heads, that America is all money, and to 
be had for the picking up. I have children of my 
own, and my husband and I work hard to make all 
to succeed in the shop. Our girls are never idle. 
Well, you see, Elsie, she runs away out of the work 
every day, and I find her always with a book. I 
say, You shall not do this,” and then she cheats 
me, and hides them. I catch her at that, and tell 
her she may read Sundays, no other days. She 
makes friends I do not like, and wants new dresses. 
My husband talks to her, and I talk, and she gets 
cross. Elsie has a hot temper, and so it goes. 
Finally she runs away, and then comes back and 
begs us to take her again, and I think perhaps I 
will, for my poor sister’s sake ; but first, I tell Elsie 
just what I think of her, and she says she will eat 
poison and kill herself; she is not one bit thankful 
to me. My husband says she shall not spoil my 
good girls, and off she go and get arrested, and put 
in the Tombs, and her name in the newspaper ! 
Then we tell her, never show her face here again. 
Oh, I wish that Elsie was dead, I do. Never have 


OUT OF THE WAY. 


I written one word of this to that poor mother. I 
tell her Elsie has left us, gone away off to learn 
dressmaking. Ry-and-by, I shall write her that she 
have died. My husband and I, we never give one 
more penny to that girl. He hate her, and I, too : 
she have made us much trouble always. Think of 
my family, good, respectable people in Germany 
and in this country, all the worse for her to spoil 
our good names ! I hope she die, and you tell her 
this. I believe her not one word that she wants to 
be good, and if she does, what use } No, always 
she tells lies. Never let me hear of niece Elsie, I 
have none.’ 

“ The woman stopped for breath, and I did my 
best then to make her think that, bad as Elsie was, 
there might be in her youth, her ignorance, and her 
natural disposition, extenuating circumstances. I 
might as well have blown against a whirlwind. 
She would not listen to any account of Elsie’s life 
since she left her, or hear of her present abiding 
place. The hospital was too good for her ; she 
ought to be in the penitentiary. It was kind in 
good women to care what became of her ; but they 
would not, if they knew her better. She warned 
me that all my trouble for her would be in vain, and 
evidenily she thought me very weak to ^ave any 


96 “ OUT OF THE WAYT 

compassion on her. I tried to touch her through 
Elsie’s mother, but that only warmed her up to 
fiercer wrath. She had, as she stoutly asserted, 
written her various falsehoods to keep her in igno- 
rance of the girl’s whereabouts, and seemed to 
think this the only kind and commendable course. 
As I arose to go, the uncle appeared on the scene. 
He treated me politely, and my errand with su- 
preme contempt. ^ If,’ said he, as he bowed me out 
of the door, ^ you can ever let us know the girl is 
dead, I will give her a nice funeral, for the sake of 
writing it back to Germany and that was the re- 
sult of that visit.” 

Well,” said Mrs. Stuart, “ I hoped for Elsie’s 
encouragement, her aunt would send her back a 
message of peace. It may not have been reason- 
able to expect that she would be taken back into 
the family or best that she should. I can im- 
agine that it has been a terrible blow to the woman’s 
family pride — a pride commendable within Chris- 
tian limits. Miss Hallenbeck, in speaking of a case 
somewhat like Elsie’s, where a young girl had re- 
entered the family of a relative, said she regretted 
that a home had not been found her among entire 
strangers. The family, even after she had proved 
in every way the sincerity of her repentance, never 


“ OUT OF THE WA'Y. 


97 


allowed her past to be quite overlooked, never could 
forgive her, as God forgives, when he remembers 
our sins no more for ever.” 

At this moment the bell rang for lunch and the 
conversation was not renewed, until later in the 
afternoon, when Miss Hallenbeck came in to bring 
a bundle of little Mary’s. She had taken it upon 
herself to go and arrange the matter of Mary’s 
removal v»rith Mrs. Rian, and Mary herself had not 

returned to street since that golden afternoon, 

when she had been taken from the dirty tenement- 
house to sweet and peaceful surroundings. The 
children were very fond of her already, and her du- 
ties were as pleasant as play to her. A few pretty 
print dresses and neat articles of clothing made her 
feel as rich as a princess. Almost every time Mrs. 
Stuart looked out of the windows, she heard the 
three children’s merry voices or saw them nestling 
together at the foot of a tree while Mary read them 
some nice story. 


13 


98 


OUT OF THE IVAYT 


CHAPTER VIII. 

“ He alone whose hand is bounding 
Human power and human will, 

Looking through each soul’s surrounding, 
Knows its good or ill.” whittier. 

A HOSPITAL nurse was talking to Mrs. Stuart 
thus, one afternoon : There is just all the differ- 
ence in the world between the patients, though just 
to stand here and look at them you would not 
think it. Such goings-on as there would be, if we 
didn’t keep the sharpest lookout! You see that 
little woman over there } No wonder she is ex- 
hausted ; she was fairly wild last night. You see 
a great many of these poor creatures drink or take 
laudanum or eat snuff — yes, marm, eat snuff, plenty 
of them do it ; and if they are in here for any length 
of time and do n’t have it, they get furious as she 
did. The doctor would not let her go out to the 
city (she was not able), so she got some strip of 
old linen I had for bandages, and when I went out 
of the ward a minute, she hung herself in a loop of 
it. A patient screamed for me and I had just time 
to get her down. Ellen is it you want to know 


“ OUT OF THE WAVr 99 

about ? Well, after you were here last, she grew 
weaker ; but she did not suffer much and she 
seemed to be so happy, thinking of her little girl. 
One day when I went to give her a drink of milk, 
I noticed the look on her face I have come to know 
right well, and I said to myself, she will die when 
the tide goes out next. That is n’t a notion, marm ; 
I have seen so many of them, where the life slipped 
out just as the tide did. And sure enough, Ellen 
went that way, smiling to the very last. I cut off 
a long lock of her hair for little Mary, and we put 
her in the neat clothing she brought on purpose 
and asked me to keep. She was not sent to the 
Potter’s Field, but was buried by some friends of 
her husband ; carpenters, I believe ; one came once 
with his wife to see her. You would see a great 
difference in such things between patients, if you 
lived here among them. Those that don’t care 
how they live do n’t care how they die, and, many 
a time, instead of feeling solemn when one of them 
goes, as you would think they would (it being on a 
midnight as likely as not), some are scolding be- 
cause they can’t sleep for the groaning, and some 
sly ones are watching their chance to steal any 
little trap the dead one may have hidden in her 
bed. An actress died here last night. She was out 


100 


“ OUT OF THE WAYT 


of her head and fairly wore herself out singing her 
theatre songs. I could not send Ellen’s little girl 
word, very well, about her mother’s dying. I knew 
you could break it to her best and I thought it 
might be harder if she saw her poor mother’s body.’’ 

“Yes,” said Mrs. Stuart, “I can take her now 
out into the sunshine, where everything is sweet 
and beautiful, and tell her that her mother will 
never suffer any more. I will try and make her 
think of heaven instead of the hospital and of God’s 
love for her. To have seen her mother in the coffin 
would have been a terrible grief to her.” 

The nurse was silent a moment, then said, “ Oh 
you have brought more beautiful flowers,” glancing 
down at Mrs. Stuart’s basket. “ I never saw people 
love flowers as they do here.” 

“Yes they really do love them for their own 
sake I am convinced,” said Mrs. Stuart. “ I am not 
•surprised that the sick ones welcome a bright or a 
sweet-scented blossom ; but here great, rough, bru- 
tal-looking women, whom once I would not think 
could care for such a thing, tease me for ‘just one.’ 
You will see when I begin to distribute them,” she 
added, turning away to begin that very work ; and 
in a moment or two the whole ward was in anima- 
tion. All who could get on their feet crowded 


OUT OF THE way: 


lOI 


around like eager children. A bright flower and 
a little green,” was the constant request. White 
flowers, no matter how sweet, were only second 
best in their esteem. Sick ones in bed waved their 
hands in comical distress and pleaded, “ Do n’t give 
them all away ! Save me a good one !” 

While Mrs. Stuart was thus employed, Mrs. 
Grey, who came with her, had sought out Elsie. 
As soon as the girl saw her she showed an excite- 
ment which she tried in vain to hide. Mrs. Grey 
followed her to a quiet corner, and sat down near 
one of the open windows. She did not keep her in 
suspense, but told her very concisely the result of 
her visit to her aunt, only omitting what she thought 
there was no use in repeating : the harsh expres- 
sions and unkind wishes. The fact that she would 
not forgive her, of course, came out at once. Mrs. 
Grey would not have been surprised had Elsie 
shown sudden fierce resentment or tried to prove 
herself ill-treated. What she did made Mrs. Grey 
more truly sorry for her than ever before. She sat 
perfectly still, only her face took on a dull, hopeless 
look, and tears stole down one after another. “ I 
might have known it would be of no use. I treated 
her badly ; I gave her no end of trouble,” she said. 

Well, Elsie, there is One whom you have treat- . 


102 


OUT OF THE WAY. 


ed worse than you ever treated your aunt, but One 
who loves you far better than she ever could have 
done — One who is ready and waiting to forgive you, 
and to help you to the uttermost. I mean Jesus, 
who died for you ; he never will turn you away : 

“‘When he lived on earth, abased, 

Friend of Sinners was his name : 

Now above all glory raised, 

He rejoices in the same.’ 

That is what the old hymn says. Before I went to 
your aunt, I hoped she would forgive you ; but I 
knew nothing about it for certain, and I was disap- 
pointed as it turned out. But I can tell you to go 
to your Saviour with your sorrows and your sins, 
and he will as surely forgive you as you go. No 
one is ever refused by him ; for, as the Bible says, 
he is a ‘ Friend that sticketh closer than a brother.’ 
Do you know how to go to him U 

Elsie shook her head in a listless, weary way. 

“ Suppose,” said Mrs. Grey, “ that this very day 
you knew that your mother’s heart was full of love 
for you because you were her child, and full of sor- 
row because you were wandering away off in this 
distant land ; and suppose you could put yourself 
suddenly where she could hear every word you would 
say to her — do n’t you think it would be easy enough 


^^OUT OF THE WA Y. 


to let her know that you were sorry, and that if she 
would only let you try once more you would do bet- 
ter ? Well now, Elsie, God is nearer to you than 
your mother could be, and he can hear, if you tell 
him just what you would tell your mother, and if 
you beg of him what you could not even of the 
most faithful loving mother : to blot out the sins of 
your past life and help you for the future. He will 
hear and he will answer. In some way he will 
make a plain path before you. I cannot say that 
you will not find hard struggles and sore troubles 
in the days to come ; you will in all probability, but 
he can carry you through all safely ; and however 
hard life may be, you will realize that sin will be 
harder in the long run.’' Elsie’s tears were stayed, 
but she was listening intently. 

“ Now, do n’t you care enough about this to try.? 
Will you not pray in this way for yourself, Elsie .?” 

Moved, as she plainly showed herself to be, Mrs. 
Grey hardly expected the prompt promise Elsie 
gave her. A few moments longer the lady talked 
to her, and then taking up the little Testament that 
lay on the stand near them, she read her a few 
verses. This was something she had never failed 
to do when visiting in the hospital wards. “My 
coming,” she used to say to herself, “may be quite 


104 


OUT OF THE WAY. 


forgotten with every word I say, but God’s words 
are with power. He has promised that they shall 
not return to him void.” 

When she shut the book, Elsie said, “ I myself 
read in it, as I told you I would, and I have read 
twice through the ‘ Pilgrim’s Progress.’ I like that. 
The time hangs so heavy here.” 

know that it must,” answered Mrs. Grey, 
*‘and I have brought you some work. You told me 
once that you could embroider, and a lady has given 
me quite an elaborate piece of work here. If you 
do it to suit her, she will pay you what it is worth, 
and perhaps have other articles embroidered. In 
this way you may have a small sum ready when you 
go out from here to keep you while you are looking 
for some work. I will speak among my friends for 
more of this same sort of work, if you give good 
satisfaction.” 

Oh, I am very glad ! It is dreadful to sit here 
and think all day. I can do it beautifully. I thank 
you very much for all you have done for me.” 

At that moment Mrs. Stuart appeared to tell 
Mrs. Grey it was time they were going, and they 
went together. Elsie .stood by the window and 
watched them going down to the boat-landing. 
They did not distinguish her face among the many 


OUT OF THE WAYT 105 

that were all the time gazing out of the innumera- 
ble windows of the great castle. She was thinking 
how strange it was that Mrs. Grey should be so 
kind to her. When she was a child she took kind- 
ness as a matter of course ; for the last few years 
she had never expected it, or deserved it, as she 
frankly confessed to herself, now that it came so 
unexpectedly. It was altogether strange, the effect 
Mrs. Grey had upon her. She never upbraided 
her ; 'always held out to her the offer and the hope 
of becoming a Christian ; yet her very gentleness 
seemed to humble her into a deeper sense of her 
own unworthiness ; her sinfulness seemed loudly 
rebuked. The very tones of Mrs. Grey’s voice 
talking to another person softened her, made her 
melancholy, and yet not wholly miserable. To-day 
she thought, “ Could I ever have been a good wom- 
an like that } Oh, why could I not have been } 
Why did not somebody tell me how.? Now it is all 
stumbling along in the dark ; and how can it ever 
be any different .? There are not many people like 
her in the world to help me and — ” And zvhat^ she 
did not say, but finished by turning her face en- 
tirely out of sight of any inmate of the ward ; and 
if she wept hopeless tears or prayed feeble prayers, 
only God knew. No one else need know. 

14 


io6 


OUT OF THE WAYT 


CHAPTER IX. 

“ Then be ye sure that love can bless, 

Even in this crowded loneliness, 

Where ever-moving myriads seem to say, 

‘Go ; thou art naught to us, nor we to thee — away !’ ” 

KEBLE. 

It was late one dismal afternoon in the autumn 
when the hospital-boat touched the dock at Twenty- 
sixth street, and a miserable crew disembarked. To 
one who knew how passengers usually rush off ferry- 
boats, leaping over chains, running up the street 
before the wheel has stopped or even the plank has 
been thrust from wharf to boat — to such a one 
there was something most suggestive in the listless 
way this company spoken of moved off. Men and 
women, weakened by months of sickness, were not 
eager to get back to the daily grind of toil. Lazy 
vagrants would have preferred to stay where the 
meals provided by charity were more regular than 
the same begged outside an “ Institution.” Almost 
the last person to leave the boat was a young girl, 
in a plain, coarse dress, and with a face so much 
thinner and paler than formerly, one would scarcely 
have recognized Elsie. In those weeks that Elsie 


OUT OF THE WAY 


107 


had been in the hospital she had thought and pray- 
ed more than in all her life before, and now she 
really longed to turn her erring feet into some safe, 
straight way. Mrs. Grey had often visited her, and 
to her was, in a great measure, due the awakening 
of the girl’s moral nature. She had helped her 
spiritually, and it was her intention to help her in 
some most practical manner to work or to a home 
when she should be well enough to come out of the 
hospital. She had not considered it wise to talk 
much of this until she should see the proper time 
and way to carry out her plans. Elsie was deeply 
grateful to her for what she had said and what she 
had been to her. She expected nothing from her 
beyond what she had received — the pay for quite a 
large amount of embroidery. Therefore, when one 
day the doctor of her ward “ crossed her card,” and 
the nurse told her that they thought her well 
enough to go away — when, we say, this was done, 
Elsie had no idea of applying to Mrs. Grey ; and 
the latter had not supposed that she would leave 
the hospital so soon. The nurse helped her to get 
her few articles of dress into order, and gave her 
good and kind advice about her future. Elsie 
thanked her with tearful eyes, for the daily life and 
character of many of these trained nurses had been 


io8 “ OUT OF THE WAYT 

a great blessing to her as to others. To see wom- 
en, young, refined, self-respecting, caring night and 
day for the degraded and suffering, with a gentle- 
ness and justice, a wise, helpful patience — this 
touched Elsie as mere talk never could. 

But to return to the afternoon of Elsie’s depart- 
ure. She had a small sum of money which she 
hoped would keep soul and body together until she 
could find work ; and as she walked slowly up the 
street, she wondered what she had best do first. 
A woman in the hospital had told her of a room 
which she might rent for a small amount of money. 
It was away across the city, but when found proved 
to be in a very respectable tenement-house. The 
old woman who showed her the room gave her im- 
mediate possession on her paying a week’s rent. 
When she had made her bargain, she shut the door 
and left Elsie to herself. There was a small iron 
bedstead in the room, a rickety old washstand, two 
wooden chairs, and a little, old table leaning against 
the wall, in a way that suggested its inability to 
stand without support ; still the place was not dirty, 
and a cheap curtain was drawn in front of the win- 
dow, out of which could be seen countless clothes^ 
lines passing back and forth from rear tenements. 
A hopeful, bright young woman would have been 


“ OUT OF THE WAYT 


109 

downcast ; but Elsie had gone through too much 
to be fastidious about her surroundings. She spread 
out on the table a paper of rolls and meat which she 
had bought for her supper, satisfied her hunger, and 
then, weary from so much unusual exercise as she 
had taken, she laid her head on her pillow, and was 
soon fast asleep. The next morning early Elsie 
started out in search of work. She bought a paper, 
and answered advertisements. People seemed quite 
pleased with her appearance; twice she would have 
been engaged as a nurse-girl, could she have told 
any plausible story to gloss over her lack of “ ref- 
erences.” 

There was a confectioner’s shop, where, because 
of her talking French and German, she might have 
had good wages ; but, on account of “ no recom- 
mendations,” she was treated with ill-concealed 
scorn. To one woman she admitted that she had 
but just come out from a hospital. The woman (a 
dressmaker) hustled her out of doors as if she had 
been a smallpox ambulance, sure to spread conta- 
gion far and wide. She found a few shops where 
she could do machine-work at starvation wages, but 
she was not strong enough to undertake the work, 
especially as she overheard the proprietor of one of 
these shops tell another man that “a tough girl 


no 


OUT OF THE WAY. 


held out sometimes three months, but generally 
there was a new lot each Monday morning.” 

After several days of tiresome walking and seek- 
ing, Elsie recollected that a sick girl in the hospital 
had told her of a place where she had worked at 
making paper boxes. She had said the work was 
easy, and the wages enough to feed her. Elsie had 
forgotten the name of the establishment, but she 
remembered the locality and found it after long 
seeking. It was far down town, a great, gloomy 
building, where she timidly applied, and was sur- 
prised at being admitted without any rigid ques- 
tioning. She wondered less when she had worked 
awhile in the place and silently studied her com- 
panions. There were there a few quiet German 
girls, modest and industrious, a number of sickly 
women, respectable — glad to get lighter work than 
they were used to, now that they could not do heavy 
tasks. Besides these, there was a large preponder- 
ance of girls, loud in manner, vulgar in talk ; their 
dress none the less soiled and ragged for the cheap 
jewelry and gaudy odds and ends of finery that be- 
decked them. Some were Irish, the children of 
laborers — girls once pretty, and too vain to go out 
to service. They had been in shops, lost favor 
with employers, and come down to transient work, 


“ OUT OF THE WAY: 


III 


with intervals of vicious idleness. Others, now 
quite on a level with these last, showed more of 
original refinement, and suggested a past not like 
their present. 

Elsie took her place among them silently, and 
kept it almost as silently. They let her alone after 
a few attempts at conversation. “I know all about 
them, and the less they know of me, the better,” 
was her mental comment. The room was dark, 
and although cold, \vas very badly ventilated ; so, 
for a few days, Elsie suffered great discomfort ; but 
she had no thought of abandoning her work. 
With what she already had, the weekly pay would 
keep her from actual want, and this, of course, was 
what she most dreaded. Each day here was like 
the one before it ; she hurried down town in the 
morning, took her usual place, worked steadily un- 
til noon, ceased for a hasty lunch, began again her 
work, at six, laid it down and went out with the 
crowd that poured forth into the street and up the 
Bowery. Elsie never made any acquaintances, and 
never talked but to one woman, a sad-faced young 
widow, who coughed constantly as she worked at 
Elsie’s right hand. 

One bleak November day, as Elsie, shivering, 
drew her shawl closer about her shoulders, the 


1 12 


“ OUT OF THE WA YT 

woman stopped her work and looked a moment 
down into the street below, one of the busiest 
thoroughfares, between noisy manufactories — one 
full of cars and stages, horses, carts, men, women, 
and children — a picture of turmoil and confusion. 

‘‘ Do you ever think of things away back.?” she 
asked suddenly of Elsie. “And do they seem to 
you as if they all must have happened in another 
world, or that you were somebody else .? I was 
thinking, just now, of long days in the summer, 
when I used to go in New England to the woods 
for berries and wild flowers. I did not know any 
more of struggles with poverty and trouble, and the 
sight of such things as I see in New York, than if 
1 had been in heaven. Is it anything so with you .?” 

Elsie thought of her home and of her mother in 
the German valley. She said, “Yes, I know what 
you mean.” But the woman had so severe an at- 
tack of coughing, that she could not speak again 
for a long time ; when she did, she said, “It will 
not be long for me here, anyway, and it does not 
make any difference. I learned a hymn when I 
was a little girl, and I think of four lines of it every 
day, as I work here. They are my prayer now. 

“ ‘ Abide with me from morn till eve, 

For without Thee I cannot live ; 









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“ OUT OF THE WA Y. 


Abide with me when night is nigh, 

For without Thee I cannot die.’ 

Are you a Christian U she asked, a faint flush 
creeping into her cheek as she looked at Elsie. 
She was half afraid of a repulse ; but Elsie looked 
up in return, with far more animation than she had 
ever shown before, and answered her, slowly, “ I — 
I — I am not as good as you are. I have — ” 

“ God never loves or saves us because we are 
good, but because /le is,’' said the woman, continu- 
ing. “ You seem different from the other girls here, 
quieter and sad. I have wanted to be friendly with 
you as I never have with the rest. You have had 
trouble, I guess, and I am sorry for you, and afraid, 
too, because trouble makes people worse, unless it 
makes them better. God never will forsake you, if 
you do n’t forsake him : remember that.” 

Elsie started to speak, but the noise of near 
machinery prevented her. She smiled, however, at 
her neighbor, and both of them were happier for 
the episode. The next day, the woman’s place was 
empty, and Elsie never saw her again ; but after- 
wards, she remembered her words, with a half-su- 
perstitious awe, as a message direct to her. 

No, Elsie could not Fieu plainly say that she 
was a Christian. She was still so very ignorant 

15 


“ OUT OF THE WAVE 


114 

and fearful, that, in feeling her way along towards 
a better life, she made many mistakes. She rea- 
soned that living the dull life she did, she ought, as 
a reward for her efforts, to be very happy in mind ; 
whereas she found her daily work tedious, and “ be- 
ing good,” as she understood it, very, very tiresome. 
She knew only too well what the city could provide 
in the way of exciting amusements ; and although 
her will to go on as she had begun remained stead- 
fast, it seemed as if she had started on a long, 
gloomy pilgrimage. . She sadly needed Christian 
help and instruction. At night, when her work 
was done, she heard the girls chatting nosily of 
their plans for a merry evening, and as she walked 
home, past theatres and concert-rooms, the music 
appealed to her German temperament, and made 
the thought of her silent, dark little room very un- 
inviting. Sunday she knew not what to do with 
herself, fler clothes were too shabby to wear into 
any grand church (or so she imagined), and of mis- 
sion-churches she knew nothing. She usually spent 
the day in sleep. 

Still, ignorant as Elsie was, her face was turned 
toward the light, even if that light was yet so dim 
it only showed her where her feet must 7iot go. 
She clung to a few half-truths, being quite unable 


OUT OF THE WA K 


to apprehend the whole power of much that she 
had eagerly treasured up in memory. She looked 
.forward with a colorless sort of hope that, after a 
life spent in trying to do right, her sins would be 
forgiven, and she should enter heaven — a place 
vaguely supposed to be desirable. She prayed, but 
seldom thought of spiritual help and comfort as 
anything for immediate application. If they came 
to her, she supposed it would be as physical help 
came to hospital patients, from the charity of the 
city ; not because the city was concerned for them 
individually, but because certain help was provided 
for them collectively, in a wholesale way, if they 
availed themselves of it. Still, on the whole, Elsie 
was more at peace with herself than for a long time. 
There was a while that very simple things gave her 
real satisfaction. Saturday nights, when she re- 
ceived her pay and stopped on her way home to 
buy herself some little articles of dress or of food, 
and the shop-people spoke respectfully to her, it 
pleased her greatly that they never tried to bandy 
jokes with her as with her shop companions. 

So passed October, November, and December, 
and through those months she had kept her room, 
managing to feed and clothe herself. During De- 
cember her work had been much harder, as more 


ii6 


“ OUT OF THE WAY. 


was required to be done for the holidays, and new 
hands were employed. After January these last 
were dismissed, and the pay of the rest was cut 
down, so that it was barely possible for Elsie to 
feed herself when her room-rent was paid, and paid 
it must be the very hour that it came due. Nights 
as she walked home in the keen, cold air, her appe- 
tite intensely sharpened, and she faint and tired 
with the day’s work, she longed at every baker’s 
shop to spend three days’ allowance, and thus for 
once have enough to satisfy herself. 

One bitter cold morning in January, Elsie 
reached the place where she was employed only to 
be told that all the girls in the West room had been 
dismissed, their services being no longer needed. 
The whole noisy troop of them was leaving, some 
loud in their lamentations, more recklessly defi- 
ant, too long used to a precarious living to expect 
anything different. Elsie was one of the number 
dismissed, and turned away into a side street, ask- 
ing herself what she should do. She remembered 
how hard her first search for work had been, in 
weather comparatively pleasant, and when she had 
some little money to keep her in the meanwhile. 
To-day her hands were purple with the cold, she 
had but a trifle in her purse, and even at this early 


OUT OF THE WAY. 


hour in the morning she was hungry. Where now 
should she labor that she might eat — and life had 
come to that with her. The thought suddenly smote 
her, as if it were quite new. She stood still away 
down on Broadway, where she had come, and real- 
ized that, at nineteen, she had no home, no friends, 
no hope, nothing to eat ! What of it ? Who cared ? 
Not one of the thousand people hurrying by her, 
crowding into stages, shivering behind the glasses 
of elegant carriages. Did God care ? Was he pun- 
ishing her for sin ? Yes, she had sinned; but had 
none of these others sinned — the rich who bought 
and sold in these great shops ? Presently she came 
to old Trinity churchyard, where the fierce wind was 
whirling the snow among the ancient graves, and, 
seeing it, the girl vaguely wished that she had been 
dead a hundred years, and life was that far behind 
her. What was the good in being just one cold, 
hungry outcast in a world too full of people already, 
so full that the wrecks of them crowded prisons 
and hospitals and tenement-houses. She argued, 
not in desperation or insanely, that perhaps she 
had better buy a bottle of poison and go home, 
and taking it, end all ; for suicide is looked at as a 
safe if not a comfortable remedy for all ills with the 
class of people from whom Elsie had learned much. 


iiS 


OUT OF THE way: 


Nevertheless, although a year ago Elsie might not 
have looked beyond the cup of poison, to-day she 
did ; and thinking of Mrs. Grey, she aroused her- 
self, turned off into a busy side street, and began a 
new search for work. What she endured of fatigue 
and cold and hunger, with constant disappointment, 
she never forgot. She could find nothing respecta- 
ble to do. She repeatedly met girls on the same 
quest. Some of them advised stealing something, 
that they might be sent up on the “Island,” where 
there v/ere always food and warmth. Whatever she 
thought, before night Elsie had ceased to resent the 
suggestion. When she dragged herself home, her 
last penny was spent for what must keep her one 
day longer from starvation. 

In the cold and darkness of her room Elsie 
thought of many things — of sweet, pure things, 
when she was a little girl in Germany; of disa- 
greeable, bitter things in her living with her aunt — 
of much, oh, so much ! Of a sudden the words re- 
turned to her spoken by the woman who worked at 
her side in the factory : “ God will never forsake 
you, if you do not forsake him ; remember that.” 
Elsie was awed, yet in some v/ay quieted. 

“ I do not see how any one can be more desert- 
ed than I am,” she reasoned ; “ but I can pray once 


OUT OF THE WAVr 119 

more, it will do no harm.” And with the thought 
that she was indeed throwing herself once for all 
on God’s care, Elsie prayed ; then, benumbed with 
fatigue, fell asleep. 

The next day was a glorious winter Sabbath. 
The sun flooded the street with light, if not with 
warmth. Elsie went out early in the forenoon, and 
spent the time after a fashion of her own. She 
would have nearly frozen had she stayed quietly at 
home, so she went from one ferry-house to another, 
where she sat apparently waiting for a boat. When 
she had remained in one as long as she thought 
prudent, she went to another, thus managing to 
keep tolerably warm. As the day passed and she 
had plenty of time for reflection, the thought of 
what she should do on the morrow filled her with 
hopelessness. She would have suffered for food 
even this day, but about noon, as she sat longingly 
looking at the cakes on a stand near the ticket- 
office, a child rose up near her, and before taking 
the boat with its mother, threw away a paper with 
the remains of a luncheon in its crumpled folds. 
Elsie picked it up and eagerly ate the bits of crust 
and broken cookies. It even flashed across her 
mind that the mouthful of food was provided for 
her, as God gives crumbs to the sparrows she had 


20 


OUT OF THE WAY. 


seen hopping about on the snow that morning. 
Toward evening she lingered so long in the last 
waiting-room, forgetful of everything but her mis- 
erable condition, that a policeman questioned her 
roughly as to what she “ was hanging around for 
when the boat had come and gone.” 

Elsie drew her old shawl tightly about her, and 
hurrying away, plunged in and out between the 
car-horses around the entrance, and then struck off 
down a long street opening into a broad, lighter 
one. It was full of teeming boarding-houses, sa- 
loons, places of low amusement, and the Sabbath 
being a holiday, the street was crowded with gayly- 
dressed shop-girls, young men sauntered up and 
down, while all the news, peanut, and candy stands 
were driving a thriving trade. Elsie drifted down 
the street, and half halted once or twice before win- 
dows out of which streamed light, with singing and 
loud laughter. At last she stood in a hesitating way 
at least five minutes, then turning suddenly, fled, as 
if pursued, up the street — on and on and out of it, 
walking in breathless haste until she reached the 
tenement-house. While she was groping up the 
stairs, the woman of whom she rented the room 
met her, and called out, “ Be off in the morning, or 
pay down.” 


“ OUT OF THE WAY. 


I2I 


Elsie went on, opened the door into the cheer- 
less place, where there was no fire, no food, nor any 
comfort. “ I might as well be off to-night,” she 
exclaimed, in a sudden reaction from that terror of 
evil that had but just possessed her; *‘it is of no 
use, there is no help for me and turning from the 
open door, she slipped away again into the dark- 
ness. But her prayers had not been in vain. Help 
might linger, but it must come. 


i6 


122 


« OUT OF THE WAYT 


CHAPTER X. 

There are in this loud, stunning crowd 
Of human care and crime, 

With whom the melodies abide 

Of the everlasting chime.” keble. 

It was midwinter, when one day Miss Hallen- 
beck appeared in Mrs. Stuart’s parlor, and, as usual, 
lingered for a chat. After the errand for which she 
came had been accomplished, she remarked, rock- 
ing back and forth in her easy-chair, “ I do wish 
that I might some time find truthfulness and stin- 
giness combined equally in one person !” 

What do you mean ?” asked Mrs. Stuart, who 
sat sewing in the bright winter sunlight. 

“ Oh, when I go to a person who has plenty of 
money and closets running over full of clothing, and 
I ask her, as I asked a lady to-day, for a little old 
linen, or a half-worn under-garment, and she talks 
as this one did, I am just sickened. I came from a 
home full of trouble — an honest, hard-working man 
had been terribly burned and laid up for weeks. 
His wife has a baby three weeks old, and five chil- 
dren are suffering for bread. I told her all the 
story, but I do n’t believe that she heard half of it. 


“ OUT OF THE WA K 


She did not mean to be cruel, but she herself had 
not seen the burns or heard the children cry. She 
is naturally stingy, and she listened to such things 
as she listens to the multiplication-table ; but it was 
not that which vexed me. It was her evasions and 
excuses. She sighed and she talked piously, and 
she generalized about 'pauperizing the poor,’ and 
how ‘ if one attended to those laid at the home-door, 
one’s hands were full.’ Now I want to be large- 
minded in judgment; but I did keep thinking, 

‘ Mrs. Price’ (that is not her name), ‘if you told the 
truth, you would say, “ It hurts me to give things 
away, and I will not, if I can possibly help it.” ’ I 
made her dresses at one time, and she has showed 
me piles and piles of garments useless to her. I 
know her closets are full of jellies and canned fruits ; 
so that when she talks to me of ‘so many calls and 
hundreds of ,such cases,’ I can only hope she really 
does not know of one hundred little boys who look 
as little Tommy Banks did last night, after he had 
given his one cold potato to his wee sister, and cried 
himself to sleep lying flat on his stomach to deaden 
the gnawings of hunger. At any rate, she was not 
asked to help anybody but Tommy this time, or to 
give a little linen for poor John Banks’ limbs. The 
truth is, Mrs. Price says No every time, for fear if 


124 


^^OUT OF THE WAY. 


she began, she should not stop ; but I declare, you 
will think I am a regular old slanderer; may be I 
am ! I will say, while I am about it, even more — 
that'^ cannot abide these ladies who go to female 
prayer-meetings (wealthy ladies), and who talk so 
heavenly of everything in the abstract, and yet 
when another lady says, ‘ Dear sisters, right around 
the corner is a widow, belonging to our church, 
who is sick and poor, etc. ; let us do a little some- 
thing to cheer her,’ these ladies, who get calm and 
skeptical all at once, want to take time to investi- 
gate, and must ‘draw a line/ and draw it this side 
of a penny. Not that it is everybody’s business to 
give to objects / think worthy. It is only the cold 
clutch on their purse-strings of people who will 
talk even gushingly on religious subjects ; this 
makes me wicked, as you can see.” t 

“ Did you get any bandages and food for the 
family asked Mrs. Stuart. 

“ I did, I went to a person who I knew would 
help me, and got some money ; but when I return- 
ed to the Banks’, they had a fire, and the children 
were toasting their toes and eating warm mush, 
that a black woman had brought in. She, a neigh- 
bor, finding out their trouble, as a matter of course 
had taken half the food of her own flock and half 


^^OUT OF THE WAY. 


25 


of her bedclothes. ‘ Oh, the good Lord knows we 
has to help one anoder,’ she said, when I thanked 
her. I could not help wondering what the good 
Lord thought when we could and would not help 
one another.” 

Miss Hallenbeck had talked herself tired, and 
gasped for breath a second or two after she stop- 
ped. Mrs. Grey had entered a little while before, 
and now spoke. One usually had to seize the op- 
portunity when Miss Hallenbeck was breathless, if 
they talked much in her presence. 

“ Well,” she remarked, “ there certainly was one 
good work accomplished last summer, and that was 
the getting of little Mary into Mrs. English’s fam- 
ily. You would scarcely know the child ; she has 
grown tall and full ; her cheeks are as plump and 
red as apples ; but the best of it is, she has proved 
a real treasure, busy and happy from morning until 
night. Mrs. English’s health has been failing stead- 
ily ever since she came, and she says it seems as if 
Mary was sent to her in just the right moment. 
She has that gift which Mrs. Stowe calls a ‘facul- 
ty.’ One day, a few weeks ago, Mrs. English had 
a hemorrhage from the lungs, and sank very low. 
I spent nearly the whole day there, and I myself 
was surprised at the child’s tact and judgment. 


126 


OUT OF THE WAY, 


She went up and down the stairs as if shod with 
velvet. She kept the children quiet as mice by 
putting them to pasting pictures in a scrap-book. 
She was as respectful and helpful to the old nurse 
as if she (the nurse) had been her mistress. Of 
course she is not a perfect child, but she is a re- 
markably good one. Mr. English is by no means a 
pleasant man in the house ; he is very domineering 
and irritable ; and it was really amusing to me to 
see how, in the absence of Mrs. English, little Mary 
tried to keep out of sight every cause of offence : 
to shut the door, so the servants could not hear 
him scold, and to be so innocently unconscious of 
her little services. Mrs. English has done the child 
great good, even if she is not spared to go on with 
the work. Mary has not been in the kitchen, but 
constantly with her and the children, and has been 
taught to do little things that Mrs. English was too 
feeble to do herself. She has read aloud and stud- 
ied with the children, and has become as lady-like 
as any little girl to be found.” 

*‘What will become of her, if Mrs. English 
dies i*” asked Miss Hallenbeck. 

I was thinking of that the other day,” returned 
Mrs. Grey, “and I was glad to hear Mrs. English say 
that she should beg Mr. English to keep her. The 


OUT OF THE WAY: 


old nurse could hardly get along with the children 
without her.’* 

“ I had made up my mind,” interposed Mrs. 
Stuart, “ that if there were changes in the family 
after Mrs. English died, I would take Mary myself.” 

‘‘Yes, she may find things very different, and 
not want to stay there,” said Miss Hallenbeck. 

“ Undoubtedly she will see a great change. Mrs. 
English, feeble as she is, controls the whole house 
gently and firmly. Old Margaret loves the chil- 
dren devotedly, but she is foolishly jealous of her 
influence over them, and often unwisely indulgent. 
Mary, of course, is too much of a child to set up 
her judgment in opposition, yet sometimes, young 
as she is, she might know that they were being 
dealt with in a way not like their mother’s. How- 
ever,” continued Mrs. Stuart, “ I shall not take 
Mary unless it is plainly best for all parties. She 
owes a duty to Mrs. English, and I shall counsel 
her to stand at her post, and make it my especial 
work to teach her to try and carry on the mother’s 
work for them after she has gone. She owes Mrs. 
English a debt of love and gratitude.” 

“Yes, that is true,” said Miss Hallenbeck; and 
the ladies were silent awhile, until she exclaimed 
again, “ Oh, by the way, Mrs. Grey, have you found 


128 


OUT OF THE WAY. 


out where your German girl went after she left the 
hospital ?” 

“ I have not, and I begin to fear that I never 
shall see or hear of her again.” 

“ It occurred to me the other day,” said Miss 
Hallenbeck, ‘‘to tell Mrs. Nichols about her, and 
to describe her the best way I could. You would 
be amazed to know how many such people she is 
continually coming into contact with. I call her a 
‘ missionary detective.’ She said if Elsie was qui- 
etly at work and doing right, she would probably 
never see her ; but if she had gone into any evil 
way, it was not at all unlikely that they might 
meet. You see, the idle vicious in the city, who 
commit no actual crimes for which they must shun 
the light, are constantly coming to the surface in 
certain spots throughout the city : hospitals, police 
courts, parks, and boats going to and from Black- 
well’s Island. Considering the immense population, 
she said it was wonderful how she could follow the 
career of certain individuals, without taking any 
particular pains to do so.” 

“ Well, I want to hear of Elsie,” said Mrs. Grey, 
“ but not in this way. I suppose that no new^s of 
her is therefore good news and here the conver- 
sation dropped. 


“ 0U2^ OF THE WAY. 


129 


CHAPTER XI. 

“ O Lord, O Love divine, 

Once more I follow thee ! 

Let me abide so near thy side 
That I thy face may see. 

I clasp thy pierced hand 
O thou that diedst for me ; 

I ’ll bear thy cross through pain and loss, 

So I may cling to thee.” 

On the afternoon of the Sabbath when Elsie 
was shivering in the ferry-house, another person, to 
whom we have previously referred, was spending 
the day quite differently. On the east side of the 
city, in a locality once very fashionable, there yet 
dwell old wealthy families, who keep the place still 
aristocratic, by their own simple disregard of fashion. 
If you had entered a certain one of the grand stone 
mansions there, you might have expected to be 
dazzled by the glitter and show of upholstery, glass 
and gilding ; but such was not the impression pro- 
duced by the interior of this home. Exquisite taste, 
but extreme simplicity marked every article on 
which the eye rested. Soft tinted curtains toned 
down the light, and the air was balmy as summer. 

17 


130 


OUT OF THE WAY. 


If the long parlors seemed a little colorless, the 
room at the southern end furnished brilliancy enough 
to suit any artist. Here were the brightest and the 
rarest flowers : a conservatory and library in one. 
In an invalid’s chair reclined an old lady, her snow- 
white hair brushed under the neat cap of a Quaker- 
ess, and her long wrapper of the softest gray. This 
was Mother” Esther Hodge, a childless widow, 
who had for years been kept by disease a close 
prisoner in her beautiful home ; because that home 
was beautiful and God had given Esther earthly 
riches as well as heavenly, there were people who 
said it was no wonder she was always serene and 
happy — who would not be so in her place But 
Esther knew what intense suffering was ; and if she 
was glad in her wealth, it was because out of her 
home was constantly going comfort and good cheer 
into darker ones. By her side, reading to her from 
an open bo6k of the Psalms was a much younger 
woman, also with a calm, sweet face, but with ear- 
nest eyes, wide open and penetrating, as if she was 
alive to everything about her, and must, at times, 
be used to taking part in other scenes than those of 
peaceful meditation. The relation which existed 
between these two women was a puzzle to many 
curious people. They were not relatives. So far 


“ OUT OF THE WAV.” 13 1 

as any one knew, Mrs. Nichols had no property ; 
but they two lived together as equals. Some per- 
sons believed that the younger was the almoner of 
the other’s riches — that she gave the heart, hands, 
and feet, for charitable work, while Esther’s was the 
treasury from which she drew. A few were fully 
persuaded that Mrs. Nichols herself had wealth ; 
but none the less chose to go herself into the high- 
ways and the hedges, the “ wild waste places but 
whatever the truth might have been, these women 
never talked of themselves and all curiosity was 
balked. 

On this afternoon Mrs. Nichols read aloud the 
thirty-seventh psalm, with that full clear utterance 
which makes a few persons’ reading of the Bible so 
spiritually invigorating, like the reading of a mes- 
sage which had for some reason acquired a new 
interest. When she ceased, the two sat for a long 
time in the silence sacred to each. The bright sun- 
light of the short winter day faded. The rosy glow 
from the heated coals in the grate played over the 
walls, and at last Esther rang a little silver bell at 
her side. Almost immediately a neat maid-servant 
entered and noiselessly arranged an inviting supper 
on the little round table drawn up between the two 
friends. 


132 


OUT OF THE WAY. 


“ I thought that thee was going out this even- 
ing, Hannah Nichols,” said the elder woman, as 
she put down her cup of chocolate. 

“ I am going out for an hour or two,” returned 
the other, “ if it does not matter to thee.” 

*‘Go, by all means, if thee thinks best, and is 
there any trace of the young woman of whom thee 
was talking yesterday, the German girl ?” asked 
Mother Esther. 

“ N(5, not the least. I have no clew to her. I 
have prayed, but I am at a loss to know how to 
begin a search. I am going to-night to read the 
Bible to the boy who must die very soon ; he beg- 
ged me to come in the evening when his room is 
most quiet.” 

“Shall not Mary or James go with thee and 
carry thy basket U 

“ No, I do not need them.” 

Mother Esther said no more, and Mrs. Nichols 
finished her supper, arranged every comfort for the 
invalid, and five minutes later stepped over the 
threshold of the grand mansion in a garb as plain 
as the plainest working woman. The air was keen 
and the little Quakeress took a brisk pace toward 
her destination, only once making a detour and this 
into the street where a few moments later Elsie 


OUT OF THE WAY, 


was to come — toward which she was even now 
rushing in a sort of blind desperation. Would they 
know one another if they were to meet ? No, and 
they were not to meet then ; but God s hand was 
in it for good. Hannah Nichols had not come into 
the street for any special purpose, but because she 
often met here those whom she knew and could 
help, warn, or counsel. To-night three young girls 
under a gas light attracted her attention, and she 
hastened toward them : two of them she recognized. 
The eldest was the wreck of what had once been a 
strong fine-looking girl, but her dark face was 
flushed and her great black eyes were fierce. She 
was both noisy and profane in her talk to her com- 
panions, one of whom had a face as blank and silly 
as a soulless animal ; the third was brighter-looking 
and more neatly dressed ; a girl who had perhaps 
but just started on the downward career. On her 
arm Mrs. Nicholas’ hand fell first, even as she 
recognized the other loud speaker and exclaimed, 
with real sorrow, “ Oh, why did you not stay where 
I put you U 

“ It is no use ! I wont ! Do n’t urge me 
again. I wont listen one word to you. You are 
an angel ; but five hundred angels could not save 
me now ; it is too late for all that.” 


134 


“ OU2^ OF THE WAY. 


Mrs. Nichols had known of this girl for three 
years, and knew that in this mood she had best let 
her alone, so, saying to the one whose arm she 
held, You three will be arrested in a minute for 
disorderly conduct, if you talk so loud and swear. 
Will you walk down the street a little way with 
me 

The girl hesitated, glanced at the loud talker, 
who offered no objection, then yielding to the firm 
speaker, she moved off, only halting a second, as 
Mrs. Nichols repeated, “Oh, how could you! how 
could you leave that place F 

“ How could I r returned the girl, careless 
whether any or all passers-by heard her. “ Because 
I ’m fit for nothing else ; because I Ve lost my life 
and my health and my friends, and I might as well 
lose my soul, too I I had to think there, where 
you put me, and it is because I wont think that I 
run away,” she cried after the retreating Quakeress. 

A moment later, a new figure joined the two 
left standing. It was Elsie, her face very pale with 
hunger and cold, but her eyes almost as wild as the 
half-drunken speaker’s. She had stopped at first 
to listen, and that because in the foolish-looking 
girl, who had slunk behind a lamp-post, she recog- 
nized a girl who had worked in the factory with 


OUT OF THE WAY 


135 


her. When the Quakeress disappeared, this last- 
mentioned came out boldly, saying, “ She let me 
alone this time. She has put me into ‘ safe places’ 
until she is tired of it. As you say, there is n’t 
any use. I was treated well, and had enough to 
eat ; but there was nothing to do but knit and 
make beds, make beds, knit, and go to prayers ; 
great fun that,” and she gave a silly giggle. “ I ’d 
rather sleep under cart-wheels and have some 
variety.” 

Where are you now asked Elsie suddenly. 

“ Come, and I ’ll show you,” returned the other. 

The tall girl wheeled about and stared at Elsie, 
her gaze increasing in interest until she exclaimed, 
“ If you are a decent girl, you had better go about 
your business.” 

“ I have n’t any,” answered Elsie moodily. 

“ Oh, you poor fool !” continued the other, in a 
lower tone, “ go and pitch yourself into the river. 
I would, if I was back where I begun.” 

I know something,” groaned Elsie, shivering 
from head to foot with cold and excitement. 

“ You do know U shouted the speaker. “Then 
go along.” 

Elsie recoiled ; and the girl, perceiving it, drop- 
ped as suddenly her coarse tone, saying, “ Maybe 


136 


“ OUT OF THE WAYT 

there is a chance for you — you look so — do n’t lose 
it. There is a saint ahead ; run and catch her ; she 
will stand by you.” 

Elsie did not half hear, or at all understand ; 
she only moved slowly off, or attempted to do so, 
when the younger girl, slipping to her side, chatted 
into her ear in a wheedling tone, evidently teasing 
her to go away with her. At this, the tall girl 
darted forward, thrust them forcibly apart, and with 
a derisive laugh declared to the one that she could 
not be separated from her, while she said to Elsie, 
I do not know nor care who you are ; but if you 
would rather be honest than to go with us, go 

straight to No. street. There is where I 

would have stayed, if I had been worth saving. Go 
this minute, if you want to. Tell them — no, just 
say, ‘ Hannah Nichols wants you to help me.’ ” 

“ Are yoti Hannah Nichols asked Elsie, half- 
fancying that a trick was to be played on her. 

The silly girl gave a loud cackle at the ques- 
tion ; the fiercer one said, “ She is an angel who 
goes around trying to make others so — girls like 
me, and fools like Liz here. But go along with 
you ; we shall freeze here. Go to grief, if you like ; 
but if you do n’t, go to No. street.” 

Cold ! Yes, suddenly aware that she was icy 


OUT OF THE WAVr 137 

cold, Elsie beat her benumbed feet on the pave- 
ment and deliberated. She was only a few blocks 
from the address so strangely given her ; should 
she test the truthfulness of the girl’s statements 1 
She hurried on as fast as possible, and in a quiet 
street found a plain brick building corresponding to 
the address given. She for a minute could not find 
the bell. Her hand fell on it, as she was half- 
tempted to flee away again : but it rang at her 
touch, and the door was opened by an elderly wo- 
man, to whom she said, hesitatingly, “ I was told to 
say that Hannah Nichols wants you to help me. 

The woman scanned her closely ; but not at all 
unkindly and then led her into a neatly-furnished 
room, so warm that the half-frozen girl felt as if 
she had stepped into paradise. When a very few 
questions had been asked her by the quiet woman, 
who had a motherly, home -like air, and a way of 
taking Elsie’s arrival as a matter of course, which 
greatly tended to make her comfortable, she led her 
into a larger room, where she gave her a simple but 
abundant meal and a cup of hot coffee. When 
Elsie saw and smelt this last, she laid her head on 
her arm and burst into tears. It was very foolish ; 
but she being overtired and so hungry ; with the 
change too from the gloom and emptiness of her 
18 


13S 


OUT OF THE WA YT 


room — all was so overpowering that her nerves 
gave way at the first sight of food and comfort so 
kindly offered. 

“ There now, eat your supper,” said the woman. 
“ Everything will be right, if you want to make it 
so. We never turned out a body who wanted to 
stay so Elsie controlled herself and ate, wonder- 
ing if it was not a dream. 

Before long, she heard the sound of singing and 
when she was warmed, satisfied, and quite calm, the 
woman invited her to go with her into a hall, nearly 
full of women and girls. They were seated in 
orderly groups and all singing the same hymns 
that had moved her when heard in the hospital. 
No one appeared to notice her and she was at lib- 
erty to listen undisturbed to a chapter of the New 
Testament read in a gentle, earnest way by the 
same woman, who had given her food and welcome. 
When the exercises were over, Elsie was assigned 
a room for the night, a small plain room ; but clean 
and warm. In great letters of various colors over 
the door was the text, “ Him that cometh unto me, 
I will in no wise cast out.” Elsie in a new sense 
of comfort and undefined hopefulness went to rest, 
not without a fear that the morning would find her 
awakening from a delusive dream. At midnight 


“ OUT OF THE WAYT 139 

she did awake and for a few minutes could recall 
nothing. There was a gaslight in the street just 
below, which filled the room with a mild glow, and 
as Elsie looked up the last four words of the illu- 
minated text which happened to be gilded, were as 
if written in letters of fire “no wise cast out.” 
These four words seemed to mean a great deal to 
Elsie as she watched them in the solemn midnight. 
She had once more wrestled with evil, had once more 
fled for refuge to the first opening that promised 
help and she had not been “ cast out might she 
not take courage and believe in God’s help I was 
this opened door the answer to last night’s prayer ? 

The next day was the beginning of a storm, 
which was the most violent of the winter, lasting 
three days. These were three strange, peaceful 
days to Elsie ; the matron of the “ Home” showed 
no curiosity to know the details of her history, but 
waited until Mrs. Nichols should make one of her 
frequent visits. She gave her plain sewing to oc- 
cupy her time and a few simple interesting books 
to read, when she was tired of work. The rest, the 
warmth, and the sufficiency of food, were just what 
Elsie needed physically and there was nothing bet- 
ter for her moral nature than this time for reflec- 
tion. The fourth day after her coming, she sat by 


140 


OUT OF THE WAY. 


herself, hemming towels when five or six girls about 
her own age entered with a lady, who evidently 
had been in the habit of getting them together and 
reading aloud to them. Elsie had seen all the per- 
sons about the house ; but no one at all resembling 
this lady. In fact, as Elsie watched and listened, 
she said to herself that she had never seen so love- 
ly a woman. How or why she seemed so, she 
could not explain, for she was not young. The soft 
hair, plainly parted over her delicate forehead was 
silvery gray and her face was grave ; but her eyes 
rested on one with a strange, gentle interest, as if, 
for the moment, she saw just you and thought of 
nothing else. As for her dress it was soft and 
modest, making no impression on the beholder. 
The girls seated themselves with pleased looks and 
quietly awaited her movements. She read them a 
short story, with a direct lesson, yet interesting in 
itself and as she read she talked to them — not 
preached ; but spoke as a teacher having knowl- 
edge of and sympathy with them. They listened 
eagerly, answered freely, often questioned. Once 
or twice she spoke to Elsie, calling her Mary ; be- 
cause on the night of her arrival Elsie had asked 
that she might be thus called, admitting that it was 
not her name. 


OUT OF THE WAY: 


After an hour of reading and instruction, which 
could not fail of doing good, because Mrs. Nichols 
always talked with the thought in her mind that it 
might be the one time some particular soul would 
come under her influence. After the hour she dis- 
missed her hearers and stayed behind with Elsie. 
She had been immediately interested in her. Her 
face, never coarse, had in a manner been refined by 
sickness and suffering, so that it was without 
instinctive repugnance that Mrs. Nichols drew her 
chair near to her, saying, “ I am so very glad that 
some one told you to come here. Now I would like 
to know how it was, if you will let me hear all 
about it.” 

Little by little, Elsie told her story, until, open- 
ing her whole life to the Quakeress, as she never 
had even to Mrs. Grey, she laid all before her from 
day to day, when a careless child, she first stepped 
her foot on American soil. Towards the last she 
mentioned Mrs. Grey’s name and Mrs. Nichols 
suddenly exclaimed, “ Elsie, that was the very one ! 
You are the German girl I promised to look for. 
Well, well, is it possible.? Why this Mrs. Grey 
would have continued to be a good friend to you. 
She was sorry to lose all track of you. I must now 
let her know. Stay here for the present and we 


142 


» OU'T OF THE WAYr 


will consider what is best ; keep your courage and 
pray for help and strength, God will give abun- 
dantly. Let us pray together now.” 

It seemed to Elsie, as she knelt in that plain 
little room by the Quakeress that she had never 
been so near to heaven in all 'her life and perhaps 
she never had been ; her eyes were full of tears, 
but hope was in her heart and true penitence. 
When they arose from their knees and Mrs. Nich- 
ols left her with a kindly word, she felt almost as 
if her mother had been with her — the true good 
mother whom she always thought of as divided 
from her by something infinitely vaster than the 
sea itself. 




“ OUT OF THE WA Y. 


143 


CHAPTER XII. 

m 

Little souls that stand expectant, 

Listening' at the gates of life, 

Hearing far away, the murmur 
Of the tumult and the strife.” 

It was a lovely evening in May; the beautiful 
river was a broad sheet of quivering crimson and 
gold. The lawn in front of the pretty villa was like 
emerald velvet dotted here and there by a golden 
dandelion or sprinkled with showers of rosy petals 
from some blossoming tree. In a little summer- 
house, overlooking the river, were three children ; 
although in calling Mary a child one felt the word 
misapplied ; “ Little Woman,” Mrs. Stuart always 
called her. To-night while she was reading with 
real interest a story to the big-eyed, handsome 
Charlie, her arm was around his sister Nell in a 
motherly way, and the little girl snuggled up to her 
as to one in whom she had supreme confidence. 
By-and-by the sunset light was so dazzling on the 
page that Mary shut the book, saying, “ Now let us 
go in to dinner. Let us see which can reach the 
steps first.” 


144 


“ OUT OF THE WA Y. 


Charlie’s fat legs carried him briskly off, Nell’s 
tiny feet pattered hard behind, and Mary judicious- 
ly stumbled over a hillock that one or both might 
triumph over her. They reached the house and 
trotted up to the nursery, knowing by experience 
that “ Our Molly,” as they called their little nurse, 
would not let them eat until she had brushed their 
soft curls and washed their faces, making them fresh 
and sweet as their mother always did — their dear 
mother gone from them now for months. 

Mr. English had, as usual, taken his dinner 
alone and was lounging on the veranda, when the 
children, coming down, seated themselves at the 
table in the diningroom. Mary, who had always 
eaten with them took her place also and a maid 
brought them their food. Mr. English, looking 
through the long glass windows, suddenly threw 
them open, and entering, rudely bade Mary “ Get 
up.” The maid gazed at him in surprise. Mary 
sprang to her feet, wondering what could be the 
matter. 

“ Hereafter you can eat with the other servants. 
You are no better than they. I never adopted you, 
and you are not to put yourself on an equality with 
my children.” 

Poor Mary was dumb ; but the maid, by chance, 


OUT OF THE WAY. 


an unusually sensible girl, put in respectfully, “It 
was not that, sir. Mary is not pushing of herself 
forward. Mrs. English liked her to do it, to keep 
the children quiet like. They would frolic and 
upset things.” 

“ Humph,” he returned, “ that speaks well for 
their manners. So a child from a tenement-house 
must come and teach them to behave themselves } 
I wont have it ! Hereafter, serve them alone, and 
if they upset anything I will punish them for it.” 

The tears were running down Mary’s cheeks, as 
she stole out of the room ; but she did not think 
first of herself. The servants were all well disposed 
toward her and she was not foolish enough to 
feel herself above them. It was the rough, disdain- 
ful tone that hurt her, and she knew the children 
were better for having her there. Who would keep 
Charlie from eating all sauce and no meat, while 
Nell certainly would play and overturn her plate or 
her milk, then to get a sharp box on the ear, if Mr. 
English saw it. 

“Whatever is the matter with you.?” asked 
fat old Margaret, who was really the prime minister 
of the nursery. She was coming down stairs and 
caught sight of Mary’s tearful eyes. Margaret was 
getting clumsy, was also troubled with rheumatism, 
10 


146 


OUT OF TJI£ JVAVT 


and lately she had taken her meals when and where 
it most suited her convenience and her infirmities ; 
but it had been for years her prerogative to eat at 
the children’s table when she chose. It was, there- 
fore, with fast increasing wrath that she listened to 
the maid’s account of matters ; this last individual 
having just come out for a plate. 

“And so I a’ n’t good enough to eat. in the 
diningroom, am I I must work my way down to 
the basement with my poor limbs ailing as they 
have lately. If Mrs. English was alive, as likely as 
not, she’d send me up my meals before I ’d have to 
hobble over even one flight. Pretty goings on 
there will be here, I foresee that. A house without 
any head but a cantankerous, high-tempered man 
a meddling with things his poor dead wife settled 
all peaceable years ago. I can’t stand it, and I 
wont !” 

Now Margaret and the cook had seldom ex- 
changed ideas ; but had always met amicably when 
their duties brought them in contact. To-night, in 
spite of the stairs, Margaret descended to the 
kitchen, not for her supper, she quite forgot that, 
but to give free vent to her pent-up emotions. The 
cook was equally full of complaints, and for a while 
their mutual grievances kept them harmonious if 


« OUT OF THE WAY. 


agitated; but soon Margaret trod on dangerous 
ground. Little Mary, who was silently eating her 
soup with the maid, and without thought of protest, 
heard Margaret loudly vindicating her claims to 
eating in the diningroom, and not being put with 
the servants.” That spark struck fire instantly. 
Hitherto it had been tacitly conceded that she 
(Margaret) was good enough to eat with the chil- 
dren ; now, the claim of being too good to eat with 
the cook was hotly contested. The maid, for 
months quiet and gentle, as need be, took vigorous 
part in this war for precedence, and poor Mary, in 
dismay, would gladly have promised to eat behind 
a door, or in a corner, could she only have calmed 
the raging elements. Margaret unwisely intruded 
Mary’s “ rights,” and ranged her on her own side, 
so far as the others were concerned, until the cook 
declared that it was “just good for her to be snub- 
bed a little.” Mary then took refuge in flight, and 
sought the children, finding them much out of hu- 
mor. They had quarrelled over a cake, which be- 
longed of right to Charlie. Their father, overhear- 
ing, had scolded him and given it to Nell. Neither 
of them was satisfied, and both were inclined to vent 
their ill-humor on poor Mary. She enticed them 
up into the nursery, and it was only after a long 


148 “ OUT OF THE WA YT 

talk about their mother, and what she would like if 
she were living, that the children or their young 
nurse felt quite at peace with all things. 

This little episode was the opening act in a 
whole drama of confusion. Mr. English’s manage- 
ment of domestic affairs was singularly unfortunate. 
Indeed, had he merely allowed all matters to go on 
in the old tracks marked out for them, it is likely 
the result would have been far more satisfactory. 
As it was, the trouble between the cook and Mar- 
garet continued until the former gave warning and 
left the house. A new incumbent was settled into 
office ; and the maid, not liking her after a few 
days’ acquaintance, followed the footsteps of the 
old cook. The new-comers considered Mary far 
too young to be able to initiate them into any of 
the household ways, although she might have told 
them a good many sensible things. After one or 
two attempts to do this she gave it up, and it was 
only needed that they should overhear a few of Mr. 
English’s unkind speeches, in order for them to 
consider her an upstart. Margaret was not unkind 
to her, but was not so much of a comforter as she 
might have been. She was a woman of good prin- 
ciples and warm heart, but bitter in her prejudices 
and unwise in giving way to them. Her best judg- 


OUT OF THE WAYT 


149 


ment told her that Mary was faithful to the chil- 
dren, and that she tried to carry out their mother’s 
ideas with singular fidelity ; but she was sometimes 
jealous of their love to her, and thwarted Mary’s 
influence from pure contrariety. Now it must not 
be supposed that Mary was a perfect child. She 
had decision of character enough to be a little ob- 
stinate, and sometimes gave her opinion when, 
all things considered, she might better have kept 
still. This latter fault did not tend to make her 
way any smoother ; but on the whole, as Mrs. Stuart 
often affirmed, she was “ a treasure.” What Mary 
would have done without this lady, it is impossible 
to say ; certainly she would have found far more 
obstacles in her path than she did, and frequently 
would have acted unwisely. Under any other cir- 
cumstances Mrs. Stuart would not have allowed 
Mary to confide to her so freely the domestic affairs 
of her neighbors ; but as time ran along and mat- 
ters grew more perplexing, she allowed the young 
girl to open her whole heart to her. The new ser- 
vants were not long in comprehending the domestic 
situation and shaping their conduct accordingly. 
So long as Mr. English’s many and sounding orders 
were promptly obeyed in his presence, all was as it 
should be. How was he to know — what the mis- 


OUT OF THE WAY. 


tress of any house would soon have detected — all 
their tricks and wrong-doing. 

Old Margaret did her best to protect the inter- 
ests of the family ; and the servants, although they 
scouted her authority, were careful to do nothing 
before her that she could report. However, they 
well knew that when she had with difficulty mount- 
ed to the top of the house, it would be some time 
before she could be back again ; and of Mary they 
made no account. During the summer, when both 
children were sound asleep, little Mary would often 
run over to sit with Mrs. Stuart on the veranda, 
and tell her the day’s experiences. She had always 
been one of those observant little bodies, who knew 
just the order of the objects about them, and who 
saw any change. Now how could she help noticing 
that beautiful linen napkins were burnt and torn 
and used for any purpose in the kitchen ; that not 
a day passed without some outrage on her master’s 
property } One day the butter-tub would be half 
full, and the next, empty. Tea and coffee seemed 
to evaporate in ways that would have appeared mi- 
raculous, had not the cook’s sister and the maid’s 
sister-in-law made social, little visits semi-weekly, 
and always appeared and disappeared with formi- 
dable baskets — of clothes, at least that was what 


‘‘ OUT OF THE WAYT 15 1 

the cook told Mary. But Charlie said No ; they 
must have been to market, for he saw cold roast 
chicken in one basket. Mary disliked to be a tell- 
tale ; moreover, as she assured Mrs. Stuart, when- 
ever she did try to right such matters she made 
great trouble for herself, with no good accomplish- 
ed. Mr. English believed the story of the more 
voluble servants, who in turn vented their spite 
upon her. To this Mrs. Stuart could only advise 
her to tell Margaret as dispassionately as possible, 
whenever she actually saw such wrong-doing, and 
leave Margaret to inform Mr. English, if she thought 
it best. 

Many a time Mrs. Stuart would have said to the 
bewildered child, “ Come and live with me,” had it 
not been for the children. Without Mary, Charlie 
would be playing in the stables, hearing the low 
jests and profanity of the coachman’s cronies. Nell 
would refuse to stay with Margaret, and be tossed 
about among the servants, foolishly indulged, or 
unjustly punished. As it now was, from the time 
they were neatly dressed by old Margaret in the 
morning, until their curly heads were still in sleep 
at night, Mary was with them. She kept them at 
play on the lawn, or read to them, or played school 
at Mrs. Stuart’s suggestion, or tried to teach them 


152 


“ OUT OF THE WAVr 

and learn something herself. No, every time the 
thought came into Mrs. Stuart’s mind she instantly 
dismissed it, with the after-thought, Mary must 
learn patience ; she must watch and pray and stand 
at her post.” As for Mary herself, the few times 
when she wished that she were “ out of it all,” Mrs. 
Stuart told her how Mrs. English’s promise to take 
care of her had filled her own poor mother’s heart 
with comfort, and that now she could richly repay 
her debt of gratitude. The thought was a constant 
inspiration to Mary. She never again spoke of 
falling out of place. It was old Margaret who con- 
tinually threatened to go to Jersey and live with 
her son William. 

One beautiful Sabbath-day, about the last of 
June, Mary arose very happy indeed. She hurried 
to the help of old Margaret, who had promised her 
what she considered a treat that day. Sunday was 
a day Mary particularly dreaded ; for while one ser- 
vant-girl went away, the other one had a host of 
friends to visit her. Mr. English was usually at 
home, and frequently had gentlemen to dinner. 
Mary was called upon for all sorts of services, scold- 
ed for all mistakes, and forced to neglect the chil- 
dren, who invariably got into trouble. When Mrs. 
English was alive, Mary was sent each Sunday to a 


153 


“ 0U2^ OF THE WAVE 

little church in a beautiful grove about a half mile 
distant, and sometimes the children went with her. 
The services were simple, and after them a Sab- 
bath-school was held, which she greatly enjoyed ; 
but all that had been at an end for Mary for some 
time. On this Sabbath-day Margaret had agreed 
to arrange matters so that Mary and the children 
could go. She would put up a little luncheon for 
them, so that they could eat it and remain to the 
Sabbath-school, which lasted quite into the after- 
noon. Mary flew about the house and did her va- 
rious duties as promptly as possible, and at half- 
past ten had the satisfaction of seeing both children 
ready with their little singing-books, and each with 
a handful of sweet, June roses. As they stood in 
the hall with Mary, Bridget the chambermaid open- 
ed the door. She was marvellously arrayed in all 
her cheap finery for an excursion into the city. In 
her clamorous, Irish way she was fond of the chil- 
dren, but Mary knew her to be unprincipled. 

“ How lovely Nell do look ! What illigent curls 
she has when they be all in order,” she exclaimed. 
‘‘And Charlie is fit to kill in that sailor suit. 
Come wid me for the day, ye little darlints, down 
into the city. We’ll ride, on the cars, and maybe 
cross the ferry. Run till ye ask the father.” 


20 


154 


OUT OF THE WAY. 


“ No, oh no, they certainly cannot go, Bridget,” 
said Mary, very decidedly. '‘They are going to 
church.” 

“ Nonsince now wid yer church for sich mites 
as these, shut up in the tight house !” 

“ O Mary, do let us go into the city with Brid- 
get,” begged foolish little Nell, hopping up and 
down in eagerness, while Charlie vigorously ac- 
cepted Bridget’s invitation, declaring on the spot 
that he would go. 

Whether it pleased the girl’s vanity to exhibit 
two really handsome children, or whether she most 
wished to oppose Mary, we cannot tell ; but she re- 
marked hatefully, “ Run back, Mary, and take yer 
bonnet off, ye ’ll be needed at dinner. The idea of 
you a gaddin’ off on a Sunday like this ere.” 

Being sorely tried, Mary was foolish enough to 
say, “ Mind your own affairs, Bridget.” Whereat 
Bridget marched directly into the library, and in a 
wheedling tone begged Mr. English to let her take 
the children out for a little air, and would he please 
tell Mary not to be running off, for the cook need- 
ed her to 'shell peas for dinner. He answered her 
in a way that made her feel at liberty to go back 
and arrogantly order Mary off the scene ; then 
grasping the hands of the children, she poured into 


“ OUT OF THE WA Y: 


^55 


their ears stories of candy, rides, sails, and strange 
sights, all the while hurrying them away from the 
house. Mary, powerless to help herself, rushed 
away and had a good cry before she returned to 
tell Margaret what had happened. 

The old nurse was very indignant and as much 
troubled. Their careful mother had never wished 
the children to go to the city with any servant. She 
knew too well how often other children were car- 
ried to dirty tenement-houses, or dragged about the 
streets until worn out by fatigue, not to speak of 
the moral impressions they might receive. But 
what was done was done. Margaret could only be 
unusually kind to Mary, and manage to let her have 
more leisure to read a book Mrs. Stuart had lent 
her; but, after all, it was a long, dreary day. At 
night Bridget arrived with the two children. They 
were very tired, very dirty, and very cross. Bridget 
herself was afflicted in much the same way. Mary 
overheard her tell the cook that they were the 
“ botheringest ” couple “ that ever she seed, and 
had given her no peace whativer.” 

Nellie, when she had received at Margaret’s 
hands a cool bath and had been put to bed, told of 
rides and candy, also of little rooms close and full 
of hateful children and Irishmen smoking pipes, of 


OUT OF THE WAV. 


156 

getting very hot and tired ; and she declared, as she 
sighed herself to sleep, “ It was not one half as 
good as going with my nice Molly to church.” 
Charlie was sulky, and sick from eating something 
that disagreed with him. The next day both chil- 
dren were languid, and complained of being tired, 
and the night following little Nell tossed about and 
cried so that Margaret had to get up and carry her 
about in her arms. Old Margaret understood chil- 
dren’s ailments perfectly ; and when, after some 
days of fretfulness, and nights even more restless, 
she declared that something unusual ailed the child, 
Mr. English promptly sent for a doctor. The old 
family physician asked all sorts of questions, and 
among others if Nellie had fallen, or in any way 
hurt herself. Both Margaret and Mary assured him 
that she had not, but a sudden, “ Oh, she did !” 
from Charlie, made them turn at once to him. He 
colored up to the roots of his curly hair, and de- 
clared he must not tell, because he got a big pink 
pop-corn ball for promising that he never would.” 
A little reasoning from the old doctor, and the 
urging that his little sister might suffer if he did 
not tell what ought to be known, brought out a 
confused story of ‘‘that old house, you know, so 
awful full of beggar-folks, where the children played 


OUT OF THE WAY. 


157 


out in the old shed over the coal-hole — had a swing 
up there, you know, and we all swinged, and the 
boys tried to make our toes touch the roof of the 
shed, you see. Well, Nell she was agoing so, and 
kind of slipped out, and she cried dreadful when 
Bridget picked her out of that coal place ; but they ^ 
washed the chimney-stuff off her, and Bridget said 
never tell, and we never did.” 

“ Here is a pretty to do !” muttered the old 
doctor. “ Why in the name of common sense do n’t 
you keep these young ones at home, when you 
have acres of grass for them to roll on ? The 
idea of sending them for change of air down to 
Water street or some other such hole and as he 
scolded he carefully felt the little girl’s limbs and 
back. 

‘‘ I can’t promise you at all that tliis baby has 
not received some lasting injuries. 5he has bro- 
ken no bones, but this tenderness and pain are bad 
signs. Now listen to what I tell you, and mind 
you attend to her faithfully hereafter.” Whereupon 
he talked a long time to Margaret, while Mary lis- 
tened attentively. Mr. English, at the first pause 
in Charlie’s story, had hastened to the kitchen, 
where he fiercely upbraided Bridget, who stoutly 
declared the thing never occurred, and was dis- 


158 » (9 UT OF THE WA YT 

missed on the spot. She did not stand at all upon 
the order of her going, but only lingered in the 
house long enough to select from an unlocked 
closet such articles of the late mistress as she 
fancied would be becoming to her robust style of 
beauty. 


‘‘OUT OF THE WAY. 




159 


CHAPTER XIII. 

“Ever so little the seed may be, 

Ever so little the hand ; 

But when it is sown, it must grow, you see. 

And develop its nature — weed, flower, or tree.’* 

The old doctor was quite right: that bright 
June morning, when little Nell danced down the 
shaven lawn, her motions were as light and free as 
a butterfly’s ; but after that day and a succeeding 
sickness of- a week or two, the child was physically 
never the same. She was always “ tired,” did not 
care for any violent play, but preferred to walk 
slowly down to the river to lie in the soft grass 
while Mary told her stories. Mr. English was for 
a time much worried, and saw that everything the 
doctor advised was faithfully attended to — riding, 
salt-water bathing, tonics, whatever it might be. 
But when Nellie ceased to be irritable, complained 
of no acute pain, and did not, as he feared, develop 
any deformity in consequence of her hurt, his anxi- 
ety gradually died away, and other things occupied 
his mind. He did one thing which was very com- 
mendable : he released Mary from all obligations 


i6o “ OUT OF THE WA YT 

to any other persons in the house, and let her be- 
long entirely to Nell. 

Mrs. Stuart was somewhat of an invalid that 
summer, and therefore was much at home. She 
had by her sofa a little silver bell, and always every 
day it was rung out of the window towards the 
English’s. In a moment or two the children would 
appear, and for one, two, or three hours would stay 
happily there. It was a little trouble to her, but of 
incalculable benefit to them. She nursed and pet- 
ted Nell, for every time she lifted the tiny girl in 
her arms she seemed lighter, and when the silky 
yellow curls were pushed up from the little fore- 
head the blue veins were clearly marked through 
the delicate skin. She was sure that Nellie was 
not a long way from that home where her mother 
had gone, and she could scarcely be sorry. She 
also in these times taught Mary much that she 
ought to know, and gave her excellent counsel, while 
Charlie kept things lively for all of them. 

Domestic affairs at the English’s went on in 
much the same way, only old nurse Margaret be- 
came more and more incapable of exercise, and 
more frequently threatened to go to her son’s. At 
last the summer-days drew near to an end, and the 
leaves from the trees fell in crimson heaps on the 


OUT OF THE WAY. 


i6i 


lawn. Nell was almost confined to the house now, 
as it made her back ache to do more than play a 
little about the nursery. It was at this time that 
something most important occurred in the family 
history. Mr. English one morning ordered a much 
more elaborate dinner than usual to be prepared, 
rooms to be decorated, and the children arrayed 
for company. He expected guests from the city ; 
but as this was not a very unusual occurrence, lit- 
tle was thought of it, unless it was by old Margaret. 
Mary overheard her muttering away to herself unin- 
telligible prophecies pf evil to come, after a fashion 
wholly her own. 

Late in the afternoon, Mary was trying to 
amuse little Nell, whose stiff white dress hurt her, 
and who was begging to have on her ‘‘ nice, easy 
wapper,” as she called the little loose gown she 
wore now constantly. Charlie was mounted astride 
a chair, when the door opened, and Mr. English led 
in one of his guests. Mary had never seen a very 
fashionable young lady so near at hand before, and 
she gazed in as wide-eyed amazement as did the 
children at this one, whose eyes were excessively 
bright, whose hair was wonderfully puffed and curl- 
ed and frizzed, whose silk and velvet trail wound 
away yards behind her, while, waddling along at the 


21 


i 62 


OUT OF THE WAYT 


end of it, was a poodle-dog, with a blue ribbon 
around its neck. 

“ Oh, you dear, sweet little creature,” she cried, 
tossing and tumbling, hugging and kissing sober 
little Nell, exactly as she manipulated the poodle 
a few minutes later, when he trembled at the old 
cat. Then she begged to kiss Charlie, but he flatly 
refused her. Mr. English scowled ; but, on the 
whole, he was so affable, Mary scarcely knew him. 
He pointed out the views from the windows, told 
the young lady where he meant to have a new 
summerhouse ; then, with another shaking up of 
Nellie, and not a glance at Mary, the remarkable 
trail slipped and rustled, and wound spirally out, 
the poodle at the terminus again. * 

“ Is n’t she a buster T broke from Charlie, after 
a second of dead silence. 

“ Do n’t !” begged Mary. “ Mrs. Stuart told you 
not to say that.” 

“ I wont,” he conceded, as, with a hand in each 
pocket of his little knee-breeches, he mused a while. 

“ Do you suppose,” he asked, perfectly innocent 
of sarcasm, “ that she combed that doggie’s wool 
over his forehead same way she did her own, or 
that she went and fixed her ownself so ’cause his 
growed that way } I wish I ’d asked her.” 


“ OUT OF THE WA YT 163 

“ I am glad you did not,” said Mary, turning 
gently to Nell, who was moaning, “ Now, my Molly, 
can’t I have my wapper on ? I guess no more 
folkses want to shake me up ; will they ?” 

Mary thought not, and so she drew the little 
waxen arms out of stiffly-starched embroidery, 
stopping only to cuddle her up in her own quaint 
little motherly way, at which Nell moralized, “ I 
like peoples to love me softly, like you do, and my 
mamma gone away ; she wore pretty silk dresses, 
too.” 

“ But she did not know how to snap the long 
end around the chairs, like she would a coachman’s 
whip — just as that lady did. Now, Molly, let us 
have our dinner,” said Charlie. 

Mary accordingly went down stairs, and soon 
returned with an abundant supply of dainties, 
which pleased the little folks greatly. She spread 
the feast in front of the cosey fire, and put Nell 
into her favorite cushioned rocker. Then they ate 
and chatted, and were as happily free from thoughts 
of the future as only children are. That evening, 
both of them fell asleep earlier than usual, and 
Mary was left to enjoy a book by the soft shaded 
lamp. She often remembered that evening — how 
sweet little Nell was, and how comical Charlie, 


164 


“ OUT OF THE WA YT 

how merry their feast together ; there was nothing 
after that quite like it. She put her book down, 
after a while, and wondered that Margaret had not 
been back to the nursery since early in the after- 
noon. Even as she remembered it, the old nurse 
entered in strange excitement. She gave a quick 
glance at the sleeping children, and seating herself 
before the fire, burst into tears. Mary was at her 
side immediately, thinking she must have had an 
uncommonly bad attack of rheumatism. But no ! 
She began soon, not so much talking to Mary as 
with herself, groaning, scolding, and only by de- 
grees making clear what it was that excited her. 

“ Just to think of it ! A spoiled child right out 
of a boarding-school ! The house ‘ needs a head,* 
does it } Well, it does that : but such a head as 
she will bring to it ! A giggling, dancing creeter, 
dressed to kill, to have the rule over my blessed 
babies ! O dear ! O dear ! I supposed, of course, 
it would come some time, but not so soon or in this 
sort of fashion. I can’t stand it, and I wont, no- 
how. I a’ n’t worth a cent for work, anyway. I ’ll 
just write to my son in Jersey to get a place ready, 
for I ’m a-coming.” 

“ What is the matter U asked Mary, her eyes 
big with apprehension. 



Wm 




■sm&n 

i\r 


mm 







V 


» OUT OF THE JVAVT 165 

“ Matter enough, Mary. That was your new- 
coming mistress — that gay young lady! Next 
month she is to be Mrs. English.” 

“ Mrs. English 1” echoed Mary. “ S/te F and 
the child stared blankly into the fire at the remem- 
bered contrast between this one with the poodle, 
and the sweet, quiet lady, on whose grave the first 
snowflake had yet to fall. 

*‘Yes, she;' and Margaret covered her head 
with her black alpaca apron, and sat long before 
the grate, groaning dismally at intervals, while 
Mary stole away to bed, to lie awake and ponder 
on this strange thing. 

For a few days, old Margaret declared that 
nothing on earth would induce her to stay after the 
new order of things began ; but when she actually 
set about getting ready to go, her heart misgave 
her. One night, after she had tucked little Nell 
into her crib, her bravery all oozed out, and she 
averred she never could leave that child, no, 
never!” Mary was very glad to hear her; she 
dreaded greatly to have the old nurse go. No one 
else could tell her a thousand things about her care 
of the children. Mary was faithful in doing, so 
far as she knew what to do ; but she was wise 
enough to realize that her care was, after all, only 


i66 


OUT OF THE WAYT 


a child’s. Now, it had never occurred to either 
Mary or Margaret that the remaining of the latter 
depended upon anything outside of her own decis- 
ion. Great was the indignation of the old nurse, 
therefore, when, one morning, Mr. English paid her 
in full, added a present, to soothe any wounded 
feelings, and told her very decidedly that he had 
understood she meant to leave them, which he con- 
sidered a very sensible plan. She was disabled, by 
her infirmities, from active work, and ought to rest. 
Mary could continue to be the acting nurse, and 
the lady soon to be installed in the house could 
give all needful oversight and direction. At her 
time of life, Margaret ought to retire from duty 
and join her son in Jersey. Now, all this was very 
well, when Margaret said it herself; but it was 
quite another thing, coming to her as Mr. English’s 
dismissal. She cried and scolded, and- insisted that 
it would kill her to leave the children. Then she 
declared that nothing would have made her stay, 
even if he had gone down on his knees and begged 
her. In her excitement, she went up and down 
stairs, as never before since Mary knew her. She 
was first packing boxes, bags, and chests without 
number, and then, forgetful of herself, telling Mary 
exactly what to do in case of croup, measles, whoop- 


V 


OUT OF THE WAYT 167 

ing-cough — in each and every accident that might 
occur to her beloved charges. It was a sorry 
leave-taking at the last. Down in the kitchen, 
Margaret had held her head up, lest the servants 
triumph over her ; had carried it all off as a high- 
handed enterprise of her own, speaking much of 
her son and his nice country-home open to her; 
but the last evening, she crept up into the nursery, 
and showed all her grief to Mary. She hugged the 
children both into her lap at once. She told how 
she was the first one to put them into their moth- 
er’s arms that she might have her first look at them, 
and the one who took them from her arms when 
she had taken her last look. She solemnly exhort- 
ed Mary to love and watch over them, and begged 
God to forgive her wherein she herself had failed. 
Charlie tried, by vigorous caresses, to comfort her, 
and little Nell softly smoothed the gray hair from 
her honest, homely face. In doing it, the light 
shone through her wee hand, and she held it still a 
moment, up between the lamp and herself, saying, 
'‘Isn’t that pretty, Molly It looks like a wose- 
leaf.” And, in fact, the tiny palm and fingers 
seemed almost transparent. Margaret turned to 
Mary and nodded her head ominously. By-and-by 
she said, “ It would break my heart, Mary, if I did 


OUT OF THE WA K 


1 68 

not think it was really better to be so. You can’t 
see it so, because you are young; but poor little 
lamb ! This is a hard world for motherless ones, 
if they are sickly, and I know she’ll never be well; 
the doctor confessed it. ’T was n’t just the fall or 
the sickness ; she inherits a feeble constitution.” 

The tears were running so fast down Mary’s 
cheeks, she could only try to escape from Nellie’s 
questions ; and this was the way the old nurse left. 

The new mother came the next week. 


OUT OF THE WAY. 


169 


CHAPTER XIV. 

“All thy longings and thy pleadings 
Are the voice of God within, 

By his Spirit’s intercedings 
Breaking off the yoke of sin. 

All thy seeking for thy Saviour 
Is the Saviour seeking thee ; 

And thy longings for his favor 
Are his yearnings deep o’er thee.” 

Mother Esther and Hannah Nichols sat to- 
gether one blustering evening in March. The wind 
that tore about the firm house and rattled the shut- 
ters only blew into a brighter glow the red coals in 
the grate, and made the pleasant rooms more cosey 
and bright. 

“What makes thee so thoughtful.?” asked the 
elder lady, putting down her knitting and gazing at 
her companion. 

“ I was thinking,” she answered, “ how often in 
some lives there are times that the soul must cry 
out, ‘ Do Thou for me, because of thy great mercy;’ 
times when, in regard to the commonest things of 
every day, one is bound hand and foot. Then I 
was thinking, if we Christians heard such a cry, we 


1 yo OUT OF THE WA YT 

ought to be a sort of under-providence, and answer 
that ‘ Do Thou for us.’ ” 

“ What soul is crying so to thee, Hannah ?” 
asked Esther, simply. 

“That Elsie’s. She cannot stay always at the 
Home ; she is young and strong. What shall she 
do } If she goes out for work alone, unaided, she 
will have the same experiences over again. Should 
I get her a situation as maid or seamstress by using 
my influence and by not telling her past history, I 
might be charged hereafter with deception. If I 
told it, I do not know any family that would take 
her. Again, one never knows when one may be 
mistaken. I believe that she will do well, trying 
to be a faithful, industrious girl ; but she may not 
always do her best, may get careless, and need pa- 
tient guiding, kind reproof, charity that suffereth 
long and is kind. As society is, people hire their 
servants to do their work, not as subjects for mis- 
sionary labor. I cannot blame them ; many could 
not, if they would, take into their families those 
who seem only to need a home in order to live 
aright.” 

“ Let us take her ourselves.” 

“ For what } Our good, faithful Ellen and Mary 
have scarcely enough to do, and it would not be 


“ OUT OF THE WAVE 17 1 

right to displace them, even if Elsie could do the 
work of either, which I doubt.” 

The old Quakeress gazed into the fire awhile, 
and then spoke animatedly, There is my brother 
Ephraim’s farm ! His wife Rachel is a godly wom- 
an, and very tender-hearted to the poor. I will 
write to her to-morrow. If she consents, we will 
have this Elsie come here and sew for us and for 
herself this next month. In this way she can earn 
a good and suitable outfit. On' Ephraim’s great 
farm there must be plenty of healthy work, and 
happy contentment in his family. Last summer 
old Deborah Hicks died ; she had lived with them 
thirty-seven years.” 

While Mother Esther talked, Hannah Nichols’ 
face was fairly radiant. She could not have desired 
anything better for this girl, in whom she had be- 
come so greatly interested. 

Now it happened that this very night, Elsie, up 
in her little room at the Home, was asking herself, 
very sorrowfully, what the future had for her. She 
was deeply grateful for the refuge given her. She 
had been much strengthened in her good resolu- 
tions by visits from Mrs. Grey, and that lady had 
been looking for work for her — how unsuccessfully 
she suspected, but really could not have imagined. 


172 


OUT OF THE WAY. 


Still there was no outlook for her, and this was to 
her mind terribly depressing. Many times a day 
she confessed that she deserved all that had come 
upon her and much more ; but she must go on liv- 
ing, and how and where should she live The first 
week of her stay in this place she had in sincere 
penitence written a long, long letter to her mother 
in Germany, had concealed nothing from her, but 
confessed all and begged only her forgiveness and 
her blessings on ‘efforts to redeem her future from 
reproach. Mrs. Nichols had read the letter, and 
assured her that if her mother were indeed the ten- 
der-hearted woman she represented her, she would 
not feel towards her as did her aunt ; but ample 
time had passed and no answer had come back. 
Every day for weeks Elsie had watched the post- 
man, her heart beating violently as he approached 
the door, a faint, sick disappointment succeeding 
as he left no letter for her. In these last weeks 
Elsie had thought constantly of Germany and of 
her mother. Heretofore her conscience had made 
recollection a torture ; but now there was a sad fas- 
cination to her in going over in memory every de- 
tail of her early years — in picturing the home-rooms, 
the furniture, the simple meals, the plays, the friends 
who used to visit there, the very dresses her mother 


“ OUT OF THE WAYT 173 

wore, for all began and ended in her thoughts with 
mother. 

She thought, what if she were dead, and had 
died knowing perhaps of Elsie’s evil deeds, and not 
of her sorrow ? This used to fill her with a cold 
horror. On this night it lay on her heart as a dead 
weight, and she sobbed herself to sleep. But her 
cry, “ Do Thou for me,” had been heard. The echo 
of it had fallen into the mind of a pure woman, rich 
in faith and in good works. A day or two later, 
Mrs. Nichols came to the house and called for Elsie. 
The latter took only time to smooth her hair and 
glance at the threadbare folds of a dress that could 
not endure much more patching ; then she hasten- 
ed down to the room which had received her into 
its warmth and refuge when she had seemed about 
to be for all time desolate. 

“ Elsie,” said Mrs. Nichols, after a kindly greet- 
ing, “ how would you like to come home with me 
for a few weeks, and sew 

Elsie’s face would have answered for her had 
she been unable to speak ; as it was, she expressed 
the greatest willingness. 

“Run up stairs then and get your bonnet and 
shawl and I will take you along with me. I have 
arranged it with the matron.” 


174 


^rOUT OF THE WAVr 

Elsie ran away, trembling with eagerness, and 
hastening as if she feared some dire accident might 
hinder her if she was not most expeditious. When 
once her feet touched the pavement and she was 
walking, side by side with the gentle Quakeress, in 
the genial sunshine so clear and sweet, it seemed 
as if her anxiety was all left behind her, although she 
saw but a few weeks of security. Mrs. Nichols had 
no idea of being rash and fully intended to know 
how Elsie would be most likely to act, before she 
sent her into quite new scenes. Whether she should 
ever hear of the farm, depended on her conduct for 
the next month or two. 

To Elsie, Mrs. Nichols had always seemed so 
much like a sort of ministering angel that she had 
scarcely classed her, even in imagination, with com- 
monplace individuals, who eat, drink, and sleep in 
houses. Her soft gray garments, the spotless linen 
at her neck and wrists seemed a part of her and un- 
associated with cloth sold at stores and made by 
dressmakers. It was almost strange to think that 
Hannah Nichols was really only a woman — only a 
good and pure one. It came to Elsie in a rush of 
tender, grateful thoughts that being put thus, as she 
was to be, into contact with her, she might see what 
surroundings went to make such a character, or 


“ OUT OF THE WAYT 175 

how such a character modified its surroundings into 
helps not hindrances. You may be sure she did 
not so clearly say it to herself ; but she thought 
with a sigh of hearty satisfaction : Perhaps I can 
see now all that she means when she talks about 
‘blessed are the pure in heart,’ and how, being that 
in heart, it creeps out as she says in every way, and 
people see it and trust one.” 

At length they stopped before the beautiful 
house, at whose door Mrs. Nichols entered. Elsie 
followed her in timid, admiring curiosity through 
the marble-floored hall into the beautiful room where 
sat Mother Esther. She left her alone a little while 
with the old Quakeress, who talked to her very 
wisely, earnestly, and kindly. 

Elsie perceived quickly that she knew her past 
and yet had hope for her future; this was the in- 
spiration she needed. If good women did not give 
her up, it was easier to have faith in a Saviour, who 
had compassion on “the ignorant and them that 
are out of the way.” After a while she was shown 
her room, a warm, spotless little place, and if plain- 
ly furnished, looking most comfortable. On the 
table were a few books and by the window a low 
chair and a capacious work-basket. 

“ We expect you, Elsie,” said Mrs. Nichols, “ only 


176 “ OUT OF THE WAYT 

to sew or work mornings for us. The afternoons 
you can have up here to yourself and would it not 
be well to make yourself with your earnings plenty 
of plain, good clothing ? Then you will be ready 
if a situation should be found.” 

Elsie gladly consented, and taking off her bon- 
net, with a light heart went to her first duties, an- 
ticipating what proved to be true that her stay in 
this household was to be good indeed. 

She could not fully understand how wisely they 
dealt with her ; how much thought and Christian 
helpfulness they bestowed upon her, but she appre- 
ciated its results. She worked industriously at 
whatever she was put to ; but it scarcely seemed 
work to sew under the direction of Mother Esther, 
who talked much meanwhile in her rare sweet way, 
or to lay aside her work and read aloud some book 
which always proved a suggestive or interesting 
one to her own mind. Sometimes Mrs. Nichols 
took her out with her for a walk, she carrying the 
basket, out of which was sure to come some delica- 
cy for a sick child or a suffering mother. There 
was not an hour in the day when she did not learn 
something of practical value about household mat- 
ters ; for wealthy as Mother Esther might be, here 
everything was conducted simply, economically, and 


“ OUT OF THE WA YT 177 

in exquisite order. Moreover, idleness was a thing 
unthought of, restful and sweet as was all the do- 
mestic atmosphere. Every night Elsie laid her 
head on her pillow, wishing that such a life might 
last long with her ; but sure from many little things 
that it was to be only for a short time. 

One day, several weeks after Elsie’s coming 
home with Mrs. Nichols, the latter was summoned 
into the parlor to meet Miss Hallenbeck, who had 
come at Mrs. Grey’s request to make a few inqui- 
ries about Elsie’s well-being and doing. It would 
be more correct to say that Mrs. Grey wished to 
know about Elsie, and Miss Hallenbeck called to 
gratify her own curiosity, as well as to report about 
the girl. The kindly but curious spinster had 
always been desirous to know where and how Han- 
nah Nichols lived, and having found out her address 
from the matron of the Home where Elsie had been, 
she determined to call at her residence. She would 
not have been surprised to find her in the humblest 
locality ; she was astonished to be led by the ad- 
dress into a neighborhood suggestive of wealth and 
aristocracy. But we might as well let her recount 
her sentiments in her own language, as she that 
same day reported the interview to Mrs. Grey and 
Mrs. Stuart : 


23 


178 


OUT OF THE IVAYT 

“ I stood on the wide stone steps of that big 
mansion, and I says to myself, ‘ Keziah Hallenbeck, 
Hannah Nichols can’t live here’ (for, you see, I’d 
seen that face and figure of hers in the dingiest 
places, until somehow I always thought of her mov- 
ing around in poverty and distress) ; but I rang the 
bell, and a tidy, quiet girl let me into a parlor that 
I ’d like to have set in an hour and just looked 
around until I found out what made it so simple, 
and yet so grand and different from other folks’ 
parlors. You didn’t think of money spent there 
no more than you would in some church, where, if 
you ever got in on a week-day alone, you know how 
kind of sweet and solemn it looked — not gloomy 
solemn, only the sunshine even was different. By- 
and-by Hannah Nichols slipped in as — well, takin* 
it all for granted (the splendor, I mean), as if peo- 
ple were what she cared for, and parlors or tene- 
ment-houses it was all the same. She said she 
hoped Elsie was a changed girl ; but she was not at 
all a perfect one, but human, with faults and fail- 
ings to be borne with. She had worked faithfully, 
however, for them, and was very glad to be taught 
and counselled. She said Elsie had spent all she 
had earned in good, suitable clothing, and that she 
had resolved to send her to a farm for the summer. 


“ OUT OF THE WAYT 


179 


among the Quakers, I took it, or such ones as Mrs. 
Nichols. She a’ n ’t like any I ever heard of ; she 
don’t do anything queer. I supposed they sang 
all their conversation, and v/ent sort of spinning 
around like tops. Oh, it is Shakers, is it, that do 
that.? Well, any way she is just the same sort of 
a Christian as the best ones I ever knew in any 
church. She is a Fi'iendy she tells folks that ask 
her ; and this is just the name for her. I sort of 
thought I would improve the opportunity and find 
out if she had a husband or any children, and 
whether she owned the house, and other interesting 
little items ; but I never found out one mortal 
thing. 

“ It was a raw, damp sort of day, and I was 
pretty well chilled through. She made me take off 
my rubbers and get warm, and she had the girl that 
opened the door bring me about the nicest cup of 
tea that I ever tasted. Yes, I was dreadfully curi- 
ous to know something about herself, as she sat 
there looking so innocent, with her silvery hair 
and her ways so soft and dignified ; but I got real 
ashamed of myself, for she went right to asking me 
about some poor wretches we had been a working 
for, and she gave me five dollars to get new tools for 
John Briggs, and made me feel just as she always 


i8o 


OUT OF THE WAYT 


does, that nothing is worth anything but to keep 
one’s self unspotted from the world, and to love and 
work for everybody else twice as hard as ever. She 
says Elsie grieves all the time that her mother does 
not answer her letter, and she is afraid she is dead 
or will not forgive her. Mrs. Nichols said she had 
to keep suggesting reasons. She told her maybe 
her mother was sick and could not write herself, 
and did not want any one to know the contents of 
Elsie’s letter, but will write when she is able ; but 
Elsie says, ‘No, she could send me just a message 
I would understand.’ If her mother is like her sis- 
ter, the woman that we went to see, she is as hard 
as a nether millstone. I saw Elsie myself ; she 
was doing something for somebody sick in the next 
room, and she came in for a moment to see Mrs. 
Nichols. She is as well-appearing a young woman 
as I ever saw. She begged me to thank you for all 
your kindness. 

“ Now I must go right to Thirtieth street and 
cut a dress for Mrs. McKnight. I told her some 
day when I had time I would drop in and see if she 
wanted it done. Maybe she has got tired of wait- 
ing ; I almost hope she has, for I promised old 
Granny Wilkes to come in and mend up her old 
things ; her eyesight is about gone. Good-by all.” 


‘ OUl^ OF THE WA K 


i8i 


CHAPTER XV. 

“The heart that trusts for ever sings, 

And feels as light as it had wings : 

A well of peace within it springs.” 

Before the new Mrs. English arrived, Mrs. 
Stuart took occasion to talk very plainly of her to 
Mary. She feared that Margaret, in her excite- 
ment, might have unduly prejudiced Mary^ and 
sown seed which would bear unwholesome fruit. 
She first showed Mary that Mr. English had cer- 
tainly a right to marry whom and when he chose, 
that the house was greatly in need of a mistress, 
and that it was very unjust to judge of the coming 
one by one single impression formed. She ear- 
nestly entreated Mary not to say one word to the 
children that would make them disaffected, and to 
keep them from the gossip of the servants. She 
advised Mary herself to try dutifully to please the 
coming lady, to serve her in every way possible, 
and to pray for help, patience, and guidance. 

Well, in course of time the lady came, and with 
her a great deal of excitement. There were recep- 


i 82 


OUT OF THE WAY. 


tions, lunch parties, dinners, calls without cessa- 
tion, and when not receiving company the bride 
was on a round of gayety herself. All this did not 
affect the little people in the nursery, for after a few 
times they were not put out for public inspection, 
as Charlie was apt to be troublesome and to tease 
Plato the poodle, while Nellie was always sick after 
excitement. They liked to sit curled up together 
in a shadowy niche over the long staircase and 
watch the people below, then to have Mary bring 
them cake and ices to feast upon at their ease in 
the nursery. They did not -dislike their new moth- 
er. She was very interesting to them as the pos- 
sessor of many elegant jewels and rich toilets mar- 
vellous to look upon. She corrected many defects 
in domestic arrangements, and she was not unkind 
to any one. She noticed Nell’s increasing weak- 
ness, and promised her a French doll if she would 
get well. Nell obligingly agreed to try, but consid- 
ering that the old doctor told her father that she 
inherited the consumption from her mother, the 
odds were against her. As the winter came on she 
failed rapidly, but suffered very little pain. She 
would wake up in the morning and ask to lie still ; 
Mary would bring her breakfast to her, and then, 
sitting on the foot of the bed, would amuse her. 


“ 0U2' OF THE IV AYE 183 

read little stories to her, or talk. Later in the day 
she would trot about a little on her unsteady feet, 
get tired, and call, “ My Mollie, put me in bed 
again, please.” 

One day she said to Mary, “ My own mamma 
died, did n’t she, before she went to heaven T' 

“ Yes, Nelly.” 

I thought so,” said the child, gravely winking 
the lids over her clear, bright eyes. “ I remember 
how it was : one day she kissed me three times at 
once; next day I never saw her any more. She 
flew away, most likely, right off, or else the Lord 
Jesus sent angels after her. Last night, I b’lieve I 
heard the cook tell black John I was going to be 
dead, too ; does you fink I am ?” 

Poor Mary struggled with her tears as she an- 
swered, “ Mrs. Stuart says may be your mother 
wants you.” 

‘‘Of course I should fink so,” mused the little 
one, as simply as if their talk was of some pleasant 
journey. “I fink little girls are better with their 
first mowers. I would have been dreadful, awful 
lonesome after my mower, only I had you, Molly. 
I love you, ’cause you hold me softly and don’t 
scold. How do you fink I will dead myself.? I 
do n’t feel springy, as if I could fly up ; but I would 


1 84 “ OUT OF THE WAYT 

just as soon go along v^^if a nice, pleasant angel, if 
one comes. Charley says he would n’t. He wants 
to ride in the new carriage. Now get me some 
candy, Molly, to stop my coughing. The new 
mamma says if I eat candy I will forget to cough. 
I don’t have to remember to cough; it coughs 
itself.” 

"‘Mary!” called* Mr. English, just outside the 
door, “ come here instantly !” 

Mary obeyed, and was as much surprised as 
frightened to have him first shut the door, and then 
in a low, angry tone demand, “ What do you tell 
that child she is going to die for You ought to 
be ashamed of yourself. She will get well, if you 
coax her and make her think so ; you are making 
her morbid, that is what you are doing !” 

Poor Mary had no idea what morbid ” meant, 
neither did she understand Mr. English well enough 
to know that he was one of those men whom grief 
or the dread of trouble makes ugly, rather than sad. 
He was proud of his children, little Nell in particu- 
lar, for she had a lovely face. He was actually 
foolish enough to think that if she was unwilling to 
die, she would be more likely to live. 

Mary faltered out, “ I did not tell her first, sir ; 
she heard the cook say it.” 


OUT OF THE IVAYT 185 

“ Well, I say I will not have it. Such talk has 
got to be stopped ; do you hear T 

“Yes, sir,” she answered, thinking that she 
would be very deaf, if she did not hear the imperi- 
ous voice in her ears. She stole back into the nur- 
sery and kissed little Nell, who was curled up in 
her crib, with .a great wax-doll on her arm. Their 
golden heads were much alike, but the doll’s cheeks 
were far pinker than her own. Mary had been with 
her but a few moments when the doctor arrived, 
and following him came Mr. English again, also the 
new mistress and the poodle. The old doctor did 
what he usually did : held her tiny wrist in his 
hand, put his big head close to her heart, and told 
her she “ must be good ” to herself ; treat herself 
as she did “ pussy — take plenty to eat, a great deal 
of rest, and keep snug and warm.” 

To her father’s questions he only replied with a 
shake of the head, and the words, “ It is a tiny 
flame ; the least thing may put it out.” 

“ Will not iron do her good, or quinine, or cod- 
liver oil U suggested Mrs. English, caressing the 
puppy ; “ or may be some sort of cough-syrup ? I 
do n’t see why she could not get as well as ever, if 
she would only stop coughing and get fat.” 

The doctor looked curiously at the lady before 
24 


iS6 “ OUT OF THE WAFT 

he remarked, “ She might be dosed with a dozen 
things, but I would not torment her.” 

“ What ails her, any way U urged Mr. English, 
moodily. 

“ She inherited consumption and a tendency to 
heart disease. That sickness in the sumrner ex- 
hausted her, and she had not constitutional vitality 
enough to rally. I have all along meant you to 
understand what I feared would be the end.” 

‘‘ But can’t you do something, doctor, to prevent 
it U suggested Mrs. English, as if that were quite 
a new idea which might not have occurred to him 
before. 

He did not answer. Mr. English arose and 
walked out of the room. Charlie had crept behind 
the poodle, and felt of its tail in a way to make it 
very uneasy; perceiving which, its mistress fol- 
lowed her husband, bestowing a sweeping courtesy 
on the old doctor, who she fancied had been quite 
dazzled by her charms. She was not hard-hearted, 
but only empty-headed. She supposed that he 
merely meant to say that Nellie would never be 
a healthy child. She was sorry ; but then deli- 
cate children made very pretty, interesting young 
girls ; she had been quite delicate herself, as a 
child. 


« OUT OF THE WA YT 187 

The old doctor sat watching Nellie as she lay 
smiling at him from her nest in the pillows. He 
muttered to himself: “It is nothing to be sorry 
for then he looked awhile at the stout boy racing 
around the room ; finally he said to Mary, “ Come 
here.” 

She readily obeyed, for she was fond of the old 
man. He pushed her hair back and studied her 
expression, eyes, and the shape of her head, with 
something of the interest of a phrenologist ; then 
he said in a genial tone, “ If you were my Molly, I 
should trust you. You want to do right, do n’t you, 
little girl ?” 

“ Yes, sir,” she returned, blushing, but her eyes 

sparkling with pleasure. 

Well, dear, be good to your little charge”— he 
drew her close and whispered in her ear: “she will 
die soon, and perhaps suddenly. Never leave her 
alone.” 

The tears came so quickly, he had to pat her 
head warningly, while he made little Nell laugh at 
his funny questions about her doll s health. 

“ I think old Doctor is a croak,” said Mr. 

English, crossly, when his wife rejoined him. “ He 
do n’t give Nell tonics fast enough. I am going to 
town to send Dr. Wells up here. Are the invita- 


OUT OF THE WAV. 


1 88 

tions out for Thursday ? I wish we had not under- 
taken the party — if anything should happen !” 

Why, what cau happen ?” she asked, surprised. 
“ I am sure Nellie looked just about as weakly 
.when I first saw her.’^ 

“ Yes, I think she did,” he returned, brighten 
ing. I am nervous ; it is so unpleasant to have 
doctors coming into a home and wagging their sol- 
emn old heads. May be that child’s stomach is out 
of order ; old Margaret said she had no appetite.” 

“Yes, or her liver — but no, she would be yel- 
low, I suppose, if it was her liver. Oh, I have 
only invited about ninety, a select little affair ; but 
do be sure and see about the music the first thing. 
I never tried to dance after such execrable music 
as they had at the Stewarts’ the other night. There 
goes the doctor down the walk. What a looking 
gig he does ride in ! I do like to see a doctor’s 
establishment all in style. I never want him, if I 
am sick ;” and thus the lady continued to discourse 
until her husband went to town and left her. 

As the week went by, little Nell was very hap- 
py, but growing weaker, with a fever every after- 
noon ; however, this made her seem more animated 
than usual. She was pleased to learn of the party, 
and listened with interest to all that her energetic 


“ OUT OF THE WAYT 189 

little brother had to tell after his many excursions 
to the kitchen, parlor, and diningroom, during the 
preceding day. When the evening came she had 
some of the fruit and flowers brought her, talked a 
a little about going down stairs, and gave it up, as 
she always did now. Mrs. English came up and 
showed herself in a wonderful pink silk and dia- 
monds. Little Nell admired it, and then fell back 
on her pillow. By-and-by Charlie ran up to tell 
how papa had a table in the library, with lots of 
wine on it, and he had tasted, and it made him “all 
hot inside.” Then the music began. Nellie loved 
that, and kept long awake to listen to it, while 
Mary sat with her in bed and kept a shawl around 
her that she might listen and not take cold. 

“ The new mamma thinks it is beautiful to be 
down there and dance, do n’t she T asked Nell. 
“And I b’lieve my mower finks heaven is beauti- 
ful too ; and she has music there, has n’t she U 
Afraid to disobey Mr. English, Mary said hesi- 
tatingly, “Your new mamma’s dress is just the 
color of peach-blossoms, is n’t it i*” 

“ Yes, and I fink my mower’s dress is white, like 
apple-blossoms. Molly, why do n’t they sing down 
stairs to the music, and not dance every minute } I 
would like to hear them sing some hymns, when 


190 


OUT OF THE WAY. 


they get tired of dancing. You go and ask them, 
Molly.” 

“ I do n’t believe people sing hymns at parties, 
Nellie ; they never do here, anyway.” 

“Then you needn’t ask. The new mamma 
says she likes fings the way other folks has them, 
and I just remember papa don’t like hymns at all. 
I expect we do n’t know very much, but I love you 
just the same. Now I’m going to sleep. I’ve 
heard enough of that dizzy music. You stay by me 
all night, Molly, wont you U 

Mary promised, lowered the pillow with the soft, 
curly head, kissed the wee white face, and waited 
to see Nell fall asleep. 

“ I love papa,” she suddenly exclaimed. 

“Yes, of course you do.” 

“ And little bruder, and new mamma, and Aun- 
tie Stuart.” 

“ Yes ; now, Nellie, go to sleep.” 

“ And the servants and the poor ashman, ’cos 
maybe his soul is n’t crocky ; and the girl that let 
me fall into the coal-hole, ’cos I must forgive one 
another her trespasses.” 

“ Yes, dear ; but you will get to coughing if you 
talk so much,” said the motherly little nurse. 

“And you, Molly, very much. Now the band 


music has stopped a minute, let us say together, 
‘ Our Father in heaven.’ ” 

They said it together, and first Nellie and soon 
her small nurse drifted away in slumber from the 
gay sounds of music and laughter. 

The early hours of the morning came, and 
while the last guests still lingered there entered 
One unbidden. He came unseen, and departed as 
silently, only not alone. At his coming the little 
child in the quiet chamber had half awakened, 
drew a fluttering breath, and was borne out of 
dream-land into heaven. 

The days that followed were the saddest of 
Mary’s life. All was confusion, lamentation, and 
excitement. The little body, arrayed in exquisite 
robes, and resting on flowers — the cast-off shell of 
Nellie — was talked of as Nellie herself. Mrs. Eng- 
lish, even in a time like this, could not forget to 
discuss “ stylish funerals ” and what is now “ con- 
sidered to be the thing.” Mr. English had never 
been so morose and unreasonable in all his life be- 
fore. Charlie refused to stay in the lonesome nur- 
sery, and preferred more entertaining company than 
his poor little nurse, who could not look at a play- 
thing without tears. She had not seen Mrs. Stuart 
for a week, as that lady was not well enough to 


1Q2 


OUT OF THE WAYT 


come in, and Mary was told to be constantly ready 
for any services at home that might be required of 
her. She was kept so busy that she had no time to 
think of her own future, and indeed might not have 
thought of it had she had the opportunity. 

It was not until several days after the funeral 
that Mrs. English spoke to her on that subject. She 
had remained in the diningroom to give some orders 
to the servants, and after attending to other things 
she called Mary to her, and said, “ Mr. English and 
I have been talking about you, and what we had 
better do with you. We have concluded to shut up 
the house for the present, and go to Europe. It will 
not be proper for us to go into society these next 
months, and I can’t stand such dulness. We shall 
take Charlie, of course; but I want a nurse old 
enough to act as maid for me, dressing my hair, 
etc. You are altogether too young for that pur- 
pose. I believe you have no relations, have you } 
Well, you are a nice, smart little girl, and I have no 
doubt you can get a place as nurse or cash-girl, or 
something or other. Mr. English says that he will 
look around in the city, and if he finds nothing else 
will pay the fee at some intelligence-office, and 
have a place secured in that way. You are too 
young to get any wages but board and clothes ; you 


“ OUT OF l^HE WAVr 193 

had better be satisfied with these! You never had 
anything else here, and have had a fine time, I am 
sure. Mr. English says you had too much liberty 
when his first wife was alive. I tell you this so 
that you will not expect more than you can have 
elsewhere. I hope you will always try and be a 
good girl.’^ 

“Yes, marm,’' mechanically answered Mary, 
with a vague impression that a door had suddenly 
opened out into emptiness, and she had been told to 
go — where, she knew not. 

She was too young to realize how perilous was 
the departure, how thoughtless the manner of her 
expulsion ; but she was oppressed by a dreary con- 
sciousness of being indeed without any “ relations.” 
She went silently up to the deserted nursery, and 
sat down by the cold and empty fireplace, with ten- 
der thoughts of Nellie and recollections of her own 
mother. She had not been so desolate since she 
wept herself to sleep nights in Catherine Rian’s old 
tenement. How she wished that her mother want- 
ed her and that God would take her, as he had Nel- 
lie. As she sat shivering there in the cold, she 
espied the great wax-doll lying half behind a trunk. 
It was the simple instinct of a child to draw it lov- 
ingly out, and in her need of sympathy to fold that 

25 


194 


OUT OF THE WAY. 


senseless form to her aching little breast, hugging 
it half for Nellie’s sake; half for lack of a com- 
panion. 

The next day Mrs. English went into the city 
shopping, and took Charlie with her. There was 
nothing for Mary to do, and the house was very 
desolate. She wandered about till afternoon, and 
was scolded by the cook and waitress, who wished 
to get her out of the way that they might improve 
Mrs. English’s absence after their own ideas. Mary 
bethought herself at last to go and tell her story to 
Mrs. Stuart. A few moments later, therefore, a 
sorrowful little face appeared to that lady, and a 
pathetic voice remarked, “ I am going to be sent to 
a situation.” 

Mrs. Stuart rose from the sofa, half inclined to 
laugh, for the great blue eyes, so innocently grave, 
and the little figure wrapped in a heavy shawl, made 
Mary appear so childish in any connection of thought 
with “a situation.” 

“ Do you know what the situation is V asked 
Mrs. Stuart, drawing her near and kissing her so 
kindly, that all at once the place seemed warm and 
sunny to the child. 

“Yes, marm, a nurse’s, I suppose. Oh no, I do 
not know where.” 


« OUT OF THE WAYT 


195 


“ Well, I know, Mary. You stay with me this 
afternoon, and I will talk to you ; then you go back 
and tell Mr. and Mrs. English that I have engaged 
you. So soon as it is convenient for them you may 
pack your trunk, and I will send for it ; then you 
may come and be my little helper. You may live 
with .me, Mary, as long as 1 have a home, if you 
continue to love and obey me.” 

“ But what can I do for you U cried Mary, her 
face radiant with delight. “ At Mrs. English’s 
you know, there was Nellie and Charlie to take 
care of.” 

Never you fear that I shall not find something 
to keep you out of mischief. After awhile I shall 
have plenty of work,” said Mrs. Stuart smiling. 
“ I am as glad to have you come to me, as you are 
to come, I think.” 

Oh I do n’t see how you can be ! why this 
was always the most beautiful home to me, and 
you, why I never can tell you hov/ splendid it 
seemed that day you came for me at Mrs. Rian’s. 
And you made my mother so happy ! She told me 
you were like the angels God sent to do good in 
the world, even Mrs. English was not like you to 
me,” urged the excited child who could hardly com- 
prehend the kind offer. 


196 


OUT OF THE WAY. 


Mrs. Stuart calmed her and sent her home 
when she saw from her window the English’s re- 
turning. Mary lost no time in telling them of her 
“engagement,” and Mr. English expressed his ap- 
proval quite warmly. Mrs. English was also glad ; 
it was so much more comfortable to see people 
taken care of than to — well to have to be bothered 
oneself. Everything was therefore easily arranged 
and Mary went joyfully to her new, and yet already 
beloved home. 

In a few weeks, it was a question in her mind 
whether, after all, Mrs. Stuart really needed her ; 
but one delightful day all her questionings came to 
an end for ever. It fell out on this wise : The 
good old doctor, whom she had learned to respect 
and greatly like, during Nellie’s sickness, came to 
the house and when he went away he patted her 
again on the head saying, “ There, my fine girl, I 
have left something for you !” 

What he meant was soon evident ; for did not 
Mrs. Stuart send for her to come into her room 
and see the tiniest baby-girl curled up close to her 
like a sleepy kitten } And Mary was told that it 
was to be her baby too and its name was to be 
“Nellie.” Yes, without any doubt, she was 
“needed” now. 


OUT OF THE wav: 


197 


CHAPTER XVI. 

“ Something for Jesus ! Lord, I long to be 
A living song of gratitude to thee, 

A guiding light, a hand stretched forth to bless 
A spirit covered with Christ’s righteousness.” 

One beautiful morning, the first of May, Mother 
Esther found at her plate a letter from her brother 
Ephraim. After reading it, she passed it to Mrs. 
Nichols saying, “Will it suit thee to go to-day, 
Hannah U 

The latter glanced over it, her face expressing 
pleasure as she answered, “As well to-day as any 
time.” Nothing more was said on the subject, un- 
til a half-hour later, when Mrs. Nichols sought out 
Elsie, who was watering some choice roses. She 
had a great love of flowers and had taken care of 
these since she came. Mrs. Nichols watched her 
a while as she stood in the bright spring sunshine 
and then remarked : “ All our sewing is done. I 
think there is no more to be found.” 

The watering pot in Elsie’s hand began to 
shake, and suddenly her face clouded. Did it 
mean she must move on, and to what or where } 


198 


“ OUT OF THE WAY. 


“ Have I served you well enough for you to 
give me a recommendation anywhere else ?” 

“ I am very well satisfied with thee, Elsie. I 
trusted thee when I brought thee here and now I 
would .trust thee twice as fully.” 

The color rushed into the girl’s face and her eyes 
filled with tears. Nothing in three years had given 
her more happiness. Mrs. Nichols had never said 
“ thee ” to her before, that was a form of expression 
she retained only towards the family, her friends 
or those towards whom she felt some degree of 
affection, and Elsie had besides a keen satisfaction 
in hearing herself so addressed because of her Ger- 
man associations with the same pronoun. It was 
as if Mrs. Nichols had held out her hand and given 
her a lift up one long step towards a truer woman- 
hood. The future was just as untried before her ; 
but courage had come with the words the lady 
uttered. She only murmured, I am so glad.” 

'‘Yes, everything is done,” continued the little 
Quakeress. " And now does thee want to go and 
live on a farm.? It is sixty miles from the city 
where there is plenty of work, but plenty of com- 
fort — birds, trees, flowers, sweet fields and pure 
fresh air; everything clean and wholesome. Just 
when the city is hot and unhealthy, everything 


“ OUT OF THE WAY.” 199 

there is at its loveliest. I think it will do thee 
good to see how beautiful God makes the country 
then ; better than all, thee will be with people able 
and willing to help thee to do right, if thee will 
do thy part faithfully. It is the farm of Mother 
Esther’s brother, Ephraim Coxe. The family are 
willing to take thee, and I shall go with thee this 
very day, if thee choose.” 

This last was said smiling, and seen to be su- 
perfluous ; for if ever a delighted assent was written 
on a face it was on Elsie’s. She flew up to her 
little room and v/as about to begin her few prepa- 
rations by packing together the strong, good cloth- 
ing, now all her own, when a quick sense of God’s 
goodness to her caused her to stand in mingled awe 
and gratitude. She turned then, locked the door, 
and fell on her knees, thanking Him for his un- 
speakable mercy to her, praying for help, strength 
and the guidance of the Holy Spirit. A while af- 
ter Mrs. Nichols passed her opened door, saw her 
busy at work and singing a glad, free song — the 
first she had sung for months that lengthened intq 
years. That was a decorous Quaker household ; 
but the good woman only smiled to herself and 
thought, “ If her sins, which were many, are forgiv- 
en, has she not a right to sing for joy U 


200 


“ OUT OF THE WAY. 


Mother Esther called her an hour before they 
started, and once more talked to her of simple, ev- 
ery-day duties, of living as in God’s sight, of truth- 
fulness, honesty, and sobriety. 

Oh, I thank you so much for all — for all — ” 
was everything Elsie could tell her. *‘You will 
pray for me, and ask God to let me hear from my 
mother, wont you U and Mother Esther promised. 

Mrs. Nichols was soon ready to start, and with 
many messages for brother Ephraim and the farm- 
folk, they set out. It was a day when the sky was 
intensely blue, and as they steamed out of the city 
it was like rushing into a new world for Elsie. She 
had not been out of New York since she crossed 
the ocean and arrived ; that seemed so long ago ! 
She glanced at her neat dress, the little travelling- 
bag at her side, out of the window into the sun- 
shine, back at the sweet, placid woman by her in 
the seat ; and the wickedness and misery of her 
past were like a dream, or, rather, a horrid night- 
mare, out of which she had awakened. About 
three o’clock they stopped at a little station, where 
was a farmer’s wagon waiting for them, and so they 
were driven along a pleasant country road. After 
a few miles’ ride they came to the great, comforta- 
ble house belonging to the farm of Ephraim Coxe. 


OUT OF THE WAY. 


2or 


JElsie thought the kitchen was a perfect picture of 
cosiness, as she followed Mrs. Nichols over its 
threshold. Every bit of wood was so spotlessly 
clean. A tall and ancient clock stood opposite the 
door, so like one known to Elsie’s childhood that 
she longed to greet it as an old home-friend. In 
the window-ledges were pots of flowers in bloom, 
and near by big chintz-covered rocking-chairs. In 
one of these sat sewing a tall, matronly Quakeress, 
the widowed daughter of Ephraim Coxe ; and near 
by played her baby-girl. 

At that moment the mother of the house ap- 
peared in an inner door, an old woman with plain, 
irregular features, and when she spoke, it was in a 
voice so deep as to be almost startling. But the 
plain face was full of goodness, and her manner 
genial as she bade the new-comers welcome. They 
did not talk much beyond that to Elsie, but let her 
feel herself getting used to them ; and when the 
baby-girl stole up to her, nearer and nearer, by-and- 
by quite into her lap and nestled there, softly pat- 
ting her cheeks, tears that Elsie would gladly have 
prevented would trickle from her eyes, tears prompt- 
ed by what she hardly knew. Hannah saw them 
(nothing ever escaped her), and she was not sorry, 
but she only said, “ Elsie, does thfee not want to go 


202 


“ OUT OF THE WA Y. 


out and look about the place ? The garden is fine. 
A little later, when the cows are milked, thee can 
help Elizabeth with the milk, she thinks.” 

The wee girl toddled after her, shaking her 
funny little head, and when they were outside the 
door Elsie caught and hugged her eagerly. It was 
a long time since she had caressed even a child, 
and it did her good. 

Mrs. Nichols and the young widow came out 
after awhile, and the latter told Elsie what would 
be expected of her, as they all walked about in the 
delicious spring air. Hannah Nichols always liked 
to go over the farm, and to-day she did it for El- 
sie’s benefit. She enjoyed the sweet smell of the 
hay in the great shadowy barns, where the yellow 
light sifted in through chinks, and the swallows 
twittered up in the rafters. The sun was quite low 
when they turned back through a pretty lane, bor- 
dered with willows just furred over with the deli- 
cate green of the coming foliage. Elizabeth finally 
hastened a little, and taking Elsie in, showed her 
how to help make ready the bountiful supper ; and 
Ephraim Coxe himself gave her a few grave words 
of kindness. It was evident there was plenty of 
work to do here, as on any farm, but the perfect 
order that prevailed, and the calm, even manner of 


OUT OF THE WAY. 


203 


executing each and every duty, made all things go 
smoothly and with ease. 

In the twilight, Mrs. Nichols, the mother, and 
Ephraim, with his daughter, sat together and talk- 
ed of mutual interests, while Elsie, in a little cham- 
ber which was to be her own, sat at the window 
and watched the stars coming out, listened to the 
bleat of a lamb, and the near ripple of a stream that 
ran through the flats.; How strange and solemn it 
seemed, after the roar of the New York streets — 
strange, but good and restful. 

“ Does thee wish to go back with me U asked 
Hannah Nichols, next morning, while Elsie was 
straining milk in the great, cool pantry. “ Our sew- 
ing is done, but there are shopwork-shirts at one 
dollar a dozen.” 

• Elsie did not seem at all tempted by the offer, 
and Mrs. Nichols went back without her. As the 
cars whirled her away from the quiet home, she 
thought of the girl’s surroundings now and what 
they might have been had no one cared for her soul. 
Yet how comparatively little trouble it had cost any 
of the Christian women who had helped her ! Not 
much time, not much expense, only some thought, 
prayer, and effort. 

And now the limits of our story would be too 


204 


“ OUT OF THE WAYT 

narrow to tell in detail what life in that Quaker 
household was to Elsie, so far as each week or 
month was concerned ; but every time that Mrs. 
Nichols heard from her, she was satisfied. As the 
season advanced, the beauty of the country was all 
about her in its novelty, while every day brought 
new interests, if very simple ones. She made but- 
ter and took care of the milk. She learned to cook, 
and yet had time to sew or to read in the long sum- 
mer afternoons, when the kitchen was as neat and 
quiet as a parlor need be. She was treated with the 
same kindness evinced towards every human being 
with whom Ephraim Coxe or Ephraim’s family came 
in contact, while towards one of that house her heart 
went out in an unbounded love to which she gave 
free expression. This was two-year-old Ruth, the 
pet of the family. So the year went by, and nothing 
very noteworthy occurred until September. 

It was in that month that Miss Hallenbeck one 
day arrived at her friend Mrs. Stuart’s in quite an 
excited mood. She had scarcely seated herself and 
began rocking vehemently, before she burst forth : 

“ I believe I have made a discovery, or else — I 
have not ! If I have, it is a queer thing, but I be- 
lieve it is providential. Where is Mrs. Grey ? She 
will be even more interested than you are.” 


205 


“ OUT OF THE WAYT 

The latter lady, hearing her name, came from a 
near room, saying, “You excite my curiosity al- 
ready. Do let us have your discovery.” 

“ Well, I will — only, you know, maybe it is n’t 
any discovery at all. You see, I was going down 
Broadway the other day, and I stopped at a window 
in which was a cage of very queer little trained 
birds that a man was showing off. There were a 
number of folks standing by, and at first I did not 
give them a look. When I did, I noticed a woman 
quite near me. She was about forty-five years old, 
and I did not recognize her, but I was sure that I 
ought to, because her face was in some way familiar. 
She was fair and plump, with blue eyes and light 
hair, very thick and curly for one of her age. I 
stood and racked my brains to think where I could 
have seen her, or if it was that she looked like 
somebody else. Just then another woman by her 
side, who had been stopping a stage, gave her a 
twitch and hurried her into the street to get in. I 
knew that woman at one glance. It was Elsie’s 
aunt, whom we went once to see, and could not 
move any more than a stone. It flashed across me 
right off who the other one was — Elsies mother ! I 
had all the time been trying to remember Elsie her- 
self : the same complexion, hair, eyes, and figure. I 


2o6 


“ OUT OF THE WAYT 

never saw a greater resemblance between a mother 
and a daughter in my life. Well, I went up to Han- 
nah Nichols as straight as I could go, and told her 
about it. I imagined that the mother had come to 
this country on account of Elsie’s letter, and would 
immediately seek her out. Mrs. Nichols did not 
believe that ; from the fact of her being with that 
aunt, she thought she had come before or without 
receiving Elsie’s letter. In that case she would of 
course hear nothing of the truth in regard to her 
daughter. Had she come on account of Elsie, she 
would have sought her at Mrs. Nichols’ address, 
which had been sent her to make sure no return 
letter would go astray. When we had talked it all 
over, Mrs. Nichols asked, ‘ Now, how are we to get 
a hearing and let the poor woman know the truth, 
but not as the aunt would render it, if she were 
forced to tell } You have been once to the house. 
Miss Hallenbeck.’ 

“‘Yes,’ said I, ‘and that is the very reason that 
I might not get access to her if I went again. The 
aunt would suspect my errand the moment I put 
foot over the threshold.’ 

“‘Well, I will go,’ said Hannah Nichols. ‘I 
have not been shut out of any place where I under- 
took to enter.’ 


V 


OUT OF THE WAY. 


“We settled that and how she would ask di- 
rectly for Mrs. , etc., when all at once it dawned 

upon us both at the same minute, that in all prob- 
ability the woman could not speak one word of 
English, and neither of us spoke German. I was 
fairly ready to cry when I thought of you, Mrs. 
Grey, and how you could talk German. I told Mrs. 
Nichols I knew you would go with her and tell the 
whole story. She says no matter what the aunt 
has said, even if she does recollect you; if the moth- 
er will hear all, she does not fear for the result. 
She thinks it would be wise not to tell Elsie, for in 
case her mother was inexorable, she need not know 
anything of it until we had taken some other action. 
It would break her heart almost to know her moth- 
er was so near and would not forgive her. Now 
will you go V 

Mrs. Grey readily consented, and arranged to 
see Mrs. Nichols that afternoon, in order that they 
might fortify themselves before they ventured. 


2o8 


OUT OF THE IVAY. 


CHAPTER XVII. 

“Yet if we will our Guide obe}’-, 

The dreariest path, the darkest way 
Shall issue out in endless day.” trench. 

As may be supposed, Miss Hallenbeck awaited 
with the greated impatience the result of Mrs. 
Grey’s mission. She visited that lady’s home on 
the day, and when Mrs. Grey returned, it was with 
difficulty she could keep from asking questions long 
enough to hear a connected story. 

“ Was it her mother ? What did she say } Will 
she forgive her ?” began the eager spinster. 

Mrs. Grey made a feint of teasing her by de- 
claring that she was so tired she believed she would 
take a nap before she tried to talk ; but finally she 
yielded to entreaties and began her story : 

“ We went directly to the store, and Mrs. Nich- 
ols did a little shopping, although we knew, of 
course, that the family lived over the shop. Well, 
while she was buying thread, pins, and little things 
of a very pleasant young girl, she talked in that 
easy way of hers that always makes whatever she 


209 


“ OUT OF THE WA YT 

says seem the most natural thing under the cir- 
cumstances. By asking which gentleman was the 
proprietor, she found that he was at the desk, and 

so not up stairs ; then she said, ‘ Mrs. ’s sister 

from Germany is with her, I believe r 

“*Yes, marm, so I have heard some of them 
say,’ answered the girl. 

“ That was enough. We went out again, rang 
the bell of the flat, and waited. If the aunt en- 
countered us after we had entered, we must simply 
out-talk her ; but we sincerely hoped to get at the 
mother alone. Mrs. Nichols told the girl who let 
us in, after long waiting, to say that a ‘ Friend ’ 
wished to see Mrs. . 

“ Well, we spent five anxious minutes in a little 
parlor before the woman entered ; but then we had 
no doubt of her being Elsie’s mother. When she 
saw us, she supposed there was a mistake, and man- 
aged to stammer in English, ‘He is out-doors — is 
my sister.’ 

“‘We do not want her,’ I began instantly in 
German. ‘ Do you want to hear good news of your 
daughter Elsie 

“ She exclaimed, ‘ My Elsie is dead ! She died 
last year. What do you mean V 

“ ‘ She is not dead, and you are being deceived. 

27 


210 


OUT OF THE WAYT 


She lives — is in perfect health not many miles from 
you ! Now be calm and let me tell you, before 
your sister returns, what you ought to know. I 
said it was good news. The end is good; but first 
I must tell you dreadful things.* And then I be- 
gan. You can imagine what it was for her to take 
it all in, and to comprehend in the course of a few 
moments the events of years. Then the conflicting 
emotions ! In her mother’s heart, oppressed with 
grief at Elsie’s supposed death, we had to see a first 
quick revulsion of horror, indignation, and wounded 
pride. When we saw this, we were so glad the aunt 
had not told her version of matters. She had un^ 
wittingly helped us greatly by arousing all the moth- 
er’s love and sorrow by her falsehood, so that we at 
first found her softened. As I went on, Mrs. Nich- 
ols prompting me with the most moving arguments, 
her pity swept away her anger. The account of 
Elsie’s prayers, tears, and longing for her mother’s 
forgiveness, melted her completely. She under- 
stood readily the attitude her sister held, and why 
she held it. She insisted, however, that no such 
influence would keep her from her penitent child. 
She said that it had been a great mystery to her 
why Elsie never wrote ; but when her sister at long 
intervals sent her a letter, she gave some plausible 


“ OUT OF THE WAY. 


2II 


excuse : Elsie was busy ; Elsie was sick ; Elsie was 
lazy ; and of late it was always that Elsie had for- 
gotten how to write German. 

‘‘ For more than a year her sister had not writ- 
ten to her at all. Great changes had taken place 
in her own family — two of her children had married 
well. The youngest daughter and the oldest son 
were both dead. The latter had laid up quite a lit- 
tle sum of money, and after his death it was found 
that he had divided it between his mother and re- 
maining brother. This brother, an energetic young 
man, greatly desired to go to America and work a 
little farm in some of the Western states. As the 
family was now in a measure broken up, he begged 
his mother to come with him, and she consented, 
greatly drawn by her desire to find out how it was 
with her Elsie, the child, of all her flock, most like 
herself. On getting to New York, her sister wished 
her to stay with her while the young man pushed 
on westward and selected a home. She had told 
the mother that Elsie grew very headstrong, left 
them to learn dressmaking, was taken with fever, 
and died in a hospital ; that the news of her death 
did not reach them until many months had gone 
by. The family agreed in these statements, and 
the idea of questioning them never entered the 


212 


“ OUT OF THE WAY. 


poor woman’s head. She would in one more week’s 
time have been with her son in the far West. 

“ Well, before we left she came to the determi- 
nation to keep her discovery a profound secret for 
some time, to save both herself and Elsie from pos- 
sible annoyance. Her sister intends to go out of 
the city the day after to-morrow on some business 
of her own ; so Mrs. Nichols arranged to call and 
get Elsie’s mother and take her to visit her daugh- 
ter. She says that after that she does not care 
what influences the aunt exerts, she will be power- 
less. Elsie is in face and manner a girl any mother 
might be pleased with, and no one could ask to 
have her more sincerely meek and teachable. 
Trouble, humiliation, and true repentance, have 
subdued her thoroughly.” 

Well ! well ! I do declare for it !” exclaimed 
Miss Kaziah Hallenbeck, “if it has not come out 
just like a story! What will Elsie say.? I’d like 
to see that meeting ; Germans are pretty excita- 
ble. I doubt if they will behave like the Quakers 
down there. Did the mother seem like a real nice 
woman .?” 

“ She did, and like a genuine Christian. She 
said she was a Lutheran, not a Catholic, like the 
sister,” returned Mrs. Grey. 


OUT OF THE WAY. 


213 


Miss Hallenbeck continued to rock back and 
forth and to discourse and question for a good hour 
longer. By that time it was so late she decided to 
stay to dinner, and turned the conversation at last 
from Elsie tc little Mary and the English’s. 

“ Dear little Nellie !” exclaimed the dressmaker, 
“ so she never got over that sickness after the ser- 
vant-girl dragged her around the city that hot day. 
Mrs. Stuart, I wish I could have a chance to tell 
the women, or some of them at least, what foolish 
creatures they are to trust the souls and bodies of 
their little, tender boys and girls to ignorant nurses, 
to tell what I myself have seen and known. Great, 
stout Irish girls striding over the ground, and drag- 
ging by one tiny arm, held almost straight up, deli- 
cate children over miles of pavement. I have seen 
such children cry with pain and weariness, and get 
their ears boxed with a blow that might have de- 
stroyed their hearing. I saw lately a nurse in Cen- 
tral Park push a tiny baby in a little basket- wagon 
right under the noses of two horses, that, with their 
knees rasped by the wagon itself, flung themselves 
back, and let a policeman snatch out the little crea- 
ture. Without doubt, she took the baby home to 
some mother, and was careful not to tell her it had 
come back out of the jaws of death. Oh, well, I 


214 


“ OUT OF THE WA YT 

have a theory of my own that that baby had an an- 
gel to take care of it. May be some such reason 
accounts for so many children living that otherwise 
would die ; but if I were a mother, I would n’t de- 
pend too much on the angels. I ’d leave them for 
exigences, and for steady, every-day service have a 
trustworthy human being around my children, no 
matter who I put up with for trimming my finery 
and dressing my back-hair. I am only an old maid, 
but I have used my eyes and ears as some mothers 
have not, and I get pretty well stirred up. Dear 
me, how incessantly I have talked to-day ! I am 
sure you must be glad to hav^ me go, and give you 
a chance to get rested before I come again.” 


OUT OF THE WAY. 


2^5 


CHAPTER XVIII. 

“ Thou gavest me thy blessing, 

From former guilt set free ; 

Now heavenly joy possessing, 

O Lord, I follow thee.” 

Hannah Nichols frequently visited the farm, 
especially in pleasant weather. She was greatly 
beloved there, and the news of her arrival always 
gave pleasure, and to none more than to Elsie. She 
was therefore glad to hear Ephraim say, as he en- 
tered the house one morning, ‘‘ Here, Elizabeth, is 
a letter for thee. It seems to be in the handwri- 
ting of Hannah Nichols. Perhaps she will visit us ; 
I urged her to come before my grapes were all 
gone.” 

Elizabeth, who sat sewing by the open window, 
broke the envelope, and said at once, Yes, she is 
coming at three o’clock this afternoon.” Then, 
reading on, she grew more interested, uttered an 
exclamation of surprise, and, rising, carried the 
letter away to her mother’s room. Elsie was iron- 
ing near an open door, out of which she glanced 
every now and then, because the prospect was so 


2i6 


OUl^ OF THE WAV. 


lovely and to her so novel. Early in the autumn 
as it was, the leaves had begun to turn, and many 
shades of brown, yellow, and crimson, made beauti- 
ful the near forests. The sky was a fair, pale blue, 
the atmosphere full of a golden haze, and on every 
side signs of peace and abundance. Little Ruth 
was trotting up and down the winding garden-path, 
with her white kitten hugged to her breast, while 
within doors the same exquisite order and cheerful- 
ness prevailed. 

“Elsie,” said the deep voice of Mother Coxe, 
“ Hannah Nichols bids us tell thee she will bring 
thee good news. It is nearly noon now, and thee 
had better put away the ironing for to-day, and we 
will have an early dinner, getting our work out of 
the way before they — before she comes.” 

Elsie obeyed, spread the snow-white cloth over 
the table, while Mother Coxe, moving in and out of 
the pantry, brought to light delicious pies and the 
great, brown doughnuts that Ephraim liked. The 
dinner was made ready then, and eaten as all din- 
ners are ; the last dish was washed and put away, 
and every crumb swept from the floor. A great 
bouquet of gorgeous autumnal flowers was set on 
the dresser among the shining pans and pitchers ; 
then Elsie went up to her own little room to put 


OUT OF THE WAY: 


217 


on her afternoon dress. It was only a calico, but 
in honor of Mrs. Nichols it was a new one, with the 
neatest of white aprons and a simple bow at her 
neck. She had taken her sewing, and was going 
back to sit by the kitchen window, where she could 
look out at the garden now brilliant with color, and 
beyond at the winding road, past the woods, along 
which Ephraim’s wagon would bring the guest. 
But little Ruth came climbing up the stairs, and in 
her irresistible way begged her to “ go walking 
that meant to lead the little one down by the brook, 
where the banks were low and green. There Ruth 
loved to sit and peer into the stream, but she never 
was allowed to go alone “fishing,” as she innocent- 
ly supposed herself to be, when watching the tiny 
inhabitants of the clear waters. Elsie clasped her 
hand, and they set out together. Once down by 
the banks, she enjoyed it as much as the child, if 
in a different way. Perhaps there are well-meaning 
persons who would think it wrong for the girl to 
“enjoy” anything heartily after her sad transgres- 
sions. They might expect, and it may be demand, 
that she have such a sense of her past sins as 
should darken every otherwise bright experience 
of her life. It was not thus with Elsie. He who, 
as she firmly believed, had said to her, “Thy sins 
28 


2i8 out of the wa vr 

be forgiven thee,” had also said, “ Go in peace.” 
She had indeed lost almost all the joyous sparkle 
of her first youth while yet a girl in years, but she 
was thoughtful, not melancholy, and of late con- 
scious of much quiet happiness. As she strolled 
along by the water, giving random answers to the 
little girl’s prattle, she heard her name called, and 
saw Mrs. Nichols coming to meet her, while 
Ephraim Coxe was at that moment driving the 
horse and wagon into the barn. 

“ She must have driven up to the door when I 
did not see her,” thought Elsie. How good she 
is to come right off and tell me her good news. 
Can it be a letter } I never thought of such great 
good news. It has been so long.” 

Possessed by that thought she asked, a second 
after returning the lady’s greeting, “ Is it a letter U 

“ What ! Still so anxious for that, Elsie ?” 

The girl’s voice trembled as she answered, “ I 
have written my mother’s name in my Bible right 
over the verse, ‘Ask and ye shall receive.’ I re- 
member you told me once we must understand it as 
asking ‘ aright but I keep hoping it will be aright. 
Is it not a letter T 

“ No, Elsie, but even better ; something direct 
from thy mother. She has forgiven theeS 


“ OUT OF THE WA YT 


219 

All the light of the radiant autumnal day seemed 
to have suddenly fallen on Elsie’s face as she ex- 
claimed, “How do you know? Where did you 
hear ? Oh tell me, do tell me !” 

“I should have supposed that it would have 
occurred to thee that she would try to find thee out 
long ago, so soon as she ceased to hear direct from 
thee. I would have crossed the sea for a child of 
mine, and mothers are alike both sides of the 
ocean.” 

“Crossed the sea,” echoed the girl vaguely. 
“ Did my mother come and go back ?” 

“ She came, but she never went back,” returned 
Mrs. Nichols joyfully. 

“ Where is she, oh where is she U cried Elsie, 
wildly snatching at the woman, as if she might 
escape. “ Is she in New York ? ’ 

“ A great deal nearer. Do n’t tremble so. Run 
back to the house, up to thy room, and if she is 
there, do not — ” 

The last words were spoken to the wind. Mrs. 
Nichols laughed gently to herself, seeing how the 
flying feet of the girl seemed scarcely to touch the 
path that led over the fields ; then she captured the 
small Ruth, who, forgetful of her Quaker ancestry, 
had copiously bespattered herself with mud, and 


220 


OUT OF THE WAY. 


with her returned to the farmhouse. Go swiftly as 
Elsie might, it seemed she could not go fast enough, 
that strength and breath would fail her before she 
could reach the room out of which she so lately 
walked, all unconscious of what was coming to her 
there. She gained the stairs, passed the threshold 
and with one look to her mother’s face was in her 
arms. It was no use to try to utter a word, she 
could only cling to her like a baby, and cry as if 
she would never stop, while the mother’s heart 
flowed out in tears almost as uncontrollable. But 
by-and-by they calmed themselves, and, sitting close 
together, began recitals, which no one interrupted 
for hours. There was so much for each of them to 
talk upon ; the mother had all the record of her 
family life, all the story of the brother and sister 
who had died, all her plans for the future. While 
Elsie, once for all, must tell her own experiences, 
that afterwards there be less need of words thereon. 
It was only after a long time that Mrs. Nichols 
smilingly came to bid them remember that “ people 
must eat even if very happy.” 

No one word could Elsie’s mother understand 
of all that was said by these friends and helpers of 
her daughter ; but Ephraim’s kind old face and his 
wife’s warm hand grasp made her at home in this 


‘^OUT OF THE WAY. 


22 


Strange America. She watched the serene face of 
Elizabeth and sweet little Ruthie, whenever her 
eyes wandered from Elsie, which was not often. 

The next day Hannah Nichols said, “I think 
that thee had best keep thy mother here with thee 
for a few days. Ephraim is going to the city Sat- 
urday, and she can return with him. I will go 
and explain her absence to her sister, if she wishes. 
There are many things thee will want to talk over 
more at leisure.” 

“Oh, I am so happy, Mrs. Nichols. I never 
expected to be so happy! Yes, indeed, we have 
much to talk over, and I want to ask your advice 
now about just the most important thing. Have 
you time to listen to me T' 

Hannah lifted wee Ruth into her lap, the kitten 
clung to her shoulder, and so at their ease in the 
great chair, Hannah said, “ Plenty of time. What 
is it 

Elsie hesitated, her eyes filled with tears as she 
glanced around the kitchen that had seemed to her 
one of the most beautiful rooms in the world ; but 
even through tears her eyes beamed with gratitude. 
“Mrs. Nichols, I do love this home so and every 
human being in it. It has been like a heaven to 
me. Even you never can realize what kindness, 


222 


OUT OF THE IVAYT 


sweetness, comfort, and plenty were to me after 
what had gone before — what a real home was. I 
have thought it would be all I could ever ask to live 
and die with this family. They have insisted on 
paying me full wages from the very first, when I 
would gladly have worked for the comforts they 
gave me as a matter of course. But now — now — ” 

“ Now things look differently, do they U sug- 
gested the Quakeress, with a beautiful smile. 

Ruthie and the kitten rolled over and over in a 
great frolic before Elsie found words to explain 
herself. 

“ Well, it does seem as if the mother and I never 
wanted to part again. She has lost my brother 
Herman and my little sister Gretchen ; the other 
sisters are married and taken up with their own 
families. It would be so lonesome for mother away 
out West, I am afraid. She does not want to take 
me away from such good friends, if it is my duty to 
stay and show my gratitude ; but she was saying 
last night, if I could go West with her, how happy 
we would be. My brother is an excellent, indus- 
trious, steady man, sure to succeed. He is very 
kind to my mother, and I used to be his favorite 
sister. He mourned for me, when he thought I 
was dead. Do n’t you see what a help and comfort 


OUT OF THE way: 


223 


I might be to my mother all the time, and especially 
if she were ill or homesick ? She never was a 
hundred miles from home before. Poor little woman, 
how I have made her heart ache ! I am strong and 
healthy, I know the language and ways of working 
here, and I understand, too, all her home customs 
and how to help her make a real little German 
home out there among strangers. It seems for her 
sake, as if I never could let her go away off alone 
to Wisconsin. Then,” continued Elsie, the color 
rushing all over her face, “ I myself should feel a 
little differently there as time goes by. I am very, 
very thankful and contented here, but — but — even 
while I believe God has forgiven me, I cannot 
always put it out of my mind that people don’t 
forget such things. Away out there, my past would 
be with God and my mother only. I do not want 
to deceive anybody or to appear what I am not ; 
that is not it at all. I — I only — ” 

“I understand thee, my child,” said the tender- 
hearted woman, “and there is no wrong in thy 
wish. I know what the friends here will say at 
once; they will, with one accord, declare thy first 
duty to be to thy faithful mother. Go with her by 
all means, Elsie, and devote thy life to her happi- 
ness.” 


224 


OUT OF THE WAY, 


It gave Elsie great joy to have the matter de- 
cided so immediately and as if there were but one 
course of action admissible. She had feared to 
seem a little ungrateful and too ready to change ; but 
now God seemed to have opened a plain path before 
her. She sang, as she went about her work, stop- 
ping every moment or two to chat with the busy 
little German mother, who would help, and watched, 
with wide open eyes, the processes of housekeeping 
in America, and who was in turn, watched as curious- 
ly by the tiny Ruth ; for was it not inexplicable to 
the latter, that queerest sounds without meaning 
came so readily from her mouth and that Elsie too an- 
swered in like manner ? She pondered on it for a 
long time, and then taking her kitten out into the 
yard, she tried a sort of purely original dialect on 
it, thinking the to her unintelligible German might 
also be its native tongue. The “ miew ” she elicit- 
ed as a result of her earnest grip she took for 
-conformation of her theory. Mrs. Nichols returned 
to the city about noon, with the understanding that 
she was to advise Elsie’s aunt of as much of the 
whole state of affairs as she deemed expedient. 
She had a shrewd intuition that as long as Elsie 
had acquitted herself so well of late, and had made 
influential friends among respectable people, that 


“ OUT OF THE WAY. 


225 


the aunt would veer around and be heartily glad, 
not so much for Elsie’s own sake as for that of 
her own family reputation. She had always told the 
story written to Elsie’s mother. It would now be 
to her (unrestrained by the claims of truth) an easy 
matter to say to all outsiders that she had been 
misinformed as to Elsie’s fate ; and Mrs. Nichols 
was sure she would act some such part, rather than 
that of persecutor. But this was a matter of little 
consequence save as it affected her own conscience. 
Elsie would soon be far away from every one, who 
had ever known her. 

Before Mrs. Nichols took her departure from 
the farmhouse, she turned to Elsie, who was 
standing thoughtfully by a window looking out at 
the forest and said, “ Thee can go now and cross off 
as answered that marked prayer in thy Bible. I 
suppose there is nothing more thee wants accom- 
plished, is there U she asked half playfully. 

“There is,” returned Elsie with sudden ear- 
nestness; “something I have prayed a great deal 
about, something I have wanted ever so many 
times to ask you to do ; only I have thought I 
ought not to lay more burdens on you, and that if 
it were possible, you probably would have done 
it unasked.” 


29 


226 


OUT OF THE WAY. 


‘‘Tell me at once what it is,” asked Mrs. Nich- 
ols, with gentle authority. 

“ Do you remember,” whispered Elsie, with an 
involuntary shudder, “ that I told you how I first 
heard of you, how I came to go to that place where 
you found me. A girl (and you told me you knew 
who she was, for you had but just left her) told 
me of you and of a place of refuge. I never can 
forget that night or that girl! Who knows what 
she had struggled against, or suffered } There must 
have been some little good left in her. Could n’t 
you find her again ? Oh, if you would only try ; tell 
her the Lord Jesus Christ saved me and he will 
save her. I cannot bear to think a human being 
helped to rescue me and then was lost herself.” 

The tears were running fast down Elsie’s cheeks 
and answering ones stood in the Quakeress’ eyes. 

“ I promise thee, Elsie, to search for her, and 
to take her thy message. I have, at different times, 
had some influence over her. She is a strange, 
desperate creature, but I may be able to trace her 
out, if she is living still ; I will try faithfully.” 

Then, bidding farewell to all the household, 
Hannah Nichols departed. 


OUT OF THE WA Y: 


227 


CHAPTER XIX. 

“ If some poor wandering child of thine 
Have spurned to-day the voice divine, 

Now, Lord, thy gracious work begin ; 

Let him no more lie down in sin.” 

It was not so difficult a thing, as might be sup- 
posed, for Mrs. Nichols to get information in regard 
to a person like the girl in whom Elsie was so much 
interested. Within a few weeks she learned that 
this “Kate” was still living. In weeks following 
she heard of her, first in one place, then in another, 
still a long time elapsed before she actually found 
her, and then it seemed by a chance. She had 
gone on an errand to one of the free hospitals, and 
was passing rapidly through a ward, when coming 
near one bed, the woman occupying it hastily cov- 
ered her head. The movement was so rapid it at- 
tracted Mrs. Nichols’ attention, but she paid no 
apparent heed to it. A few moments later, how- 
.ever, she reentered the room unexpectedly, and 
looked directly into the eyes of the girl whom she 
had been seeking for nearly three months. She 
went immediately to her, drew out a chair, and sat 


228 


“ OUT OF THE WAY 


down near her, saying quietly, I have been look- 
ing for you, Kate. I have a message for you. Do 
you remember how you helped another girl about a 
year ago U 

“ The girl I gave a ticket to — the girl who want- 
ed to get back to her friends ?” 

“ No. Did you help such a one, too 

“ Oh, yes,” she replied, relapsing into sarcasm, 
I am a regular missionary. I can’t possibly recall 
all my good deeds. I look as if I had spent my 
life that way, do n’t I ? But why do n’t you give 
me up ? I would rather you would not talk to me.” 

*‘Why.^” asked Mrs. Nichols. 

The girl would have answered, if she could have 
put into words the thoughts that always stirred in 
her when she met this woman. After waiting 
awhile in silence, Mrs. Nichols asked her if she 
remembered the evening when she sent another 
girl to the street Home. Then, without giv- 

ing Elsie’s name or all details, she told her the 
story of Elsie’s rescue, of her gratitude, and her 
desire that Kate herself might be saved. The girl 
listened with interest, and seemed glad to hear of 
Elsie’s welfare, and really touched by her thoughts 
of herself. 

“ She was worth .saving,” she commented. 


OUT OF THE WAY. 


229 


“ Hardly any of us are worth an effort, and the 
most do n’t want to be helped.” 

“ God thinks every soul worth saving,” said the 
woman. 

‘‘ Why do n’t he have some care of us, then 

“Kate, where was your home.?” asked Mrs. 
Nichols, gently, not choosing that- time to answer 
the question, which she meant to answer, notwith- 
standing. 

“ When I was fourteen years old I came to the 
city. My father drank; my stepmother did the 
same. I was tired of the quiet country. I did not 
know what I meant to do when I got here, but I 
went like all the rest. It is always the same story ! 
One thousand of us could not tell any new thing. 
You never can understand. There was a woman 
once who talked to me in a park ; she said, * Why 
do n’t you turn over a new leaf this very minute .? 
Why do n’t you be in earnest, and say, “ I will be re- 
spectable” .?’ I did not laugh at her. She was kind, 
but dear me ! Why did n’t I rise up and say, ‘ I will 
be handsome, or rich, or pious’.? Saying isn’t be- 
ing. I do n’t blame anybody, either.” 

“ I understand you, Kate, better than you think 
I do ; but I did not find you, after all this time, to 
tell you that, considering your past, there is no help 


23P 


“ OUT OF THE WA Y. 


for you. I have come to offer you salvation from 
yourself, and hope for the future.” 

“ I shall probably never go out again. One side 
of me is paralyzed, and I feel as if I had about come 
to the end ; so it is of no use. I could not work, 
and I have no idea I should try,” she returned, in a 
tone devoid of any enthusiasm. 

“ What do you mean,” asked Mrs. Nichols, kind- 
ly, ‘‘ when you speak of * pious people ’ } Have you 
ever read the Bible ?” 

*‘I can just remember once going into some 
church when I was a little girl. I ’ve picked up my 
notions here and there. I should have remem- 
bered, if I had been regularly taught, for I am 
smart enough at wickedness when I feel like it. 
The Bible — I should have read it out of curiosity 
sometimes, if I had ever been where one was. I 
never have, except in a police court. I’ve seen 
them mostly used to swear folks on.” 

“ Do you know what Jesus Christ came into the 
world for ? Think a minute before you answer, and 
tell me Vvrhat you really know.” 

Well, now I am not trying to pretend I do n’t 
know it is wrong to lie and steal and swear and 
drink and live a horrid life. Of course I know it,” 
said Kate, vveariedly. 


V 


OUT OF THE WAY. 


231 


“ Please answer my question.” 

“What do I know? Nothing; this is clear; so 
I can tell it right off. I have heard good folks say 
He loves them, and I suppose He taught them they 
could go to heaven when they die, because they 
were so good. Other folks (mostly bad ones) say 
there never was such a person, and that when we 
die that is the end of us. I do n’t know, I am sure. 
How can I ?” 

“ Well, Kate, I want you to hear me now. Wont 
you try and listen like a child who believes what its 
mother tells it ? Let me tell you who the Lord 
Jesus Christ is, and what he came for. I have 
plenty of time, and you are not too sick, are you ?” 
asked Mrs. Nichols. 

“No, I am not,” she answered frankly, the glance 
of her great, black eyes wandering over the earnest 
face of the Quakeress. She was always tempted to 
avoid this woman when she could, because, when 
she could not, she invariably yielded to her influ- 
ence, and confessed her sins as to no one else. She 
was the one human being she wholly reverenced, 
and would have loved, had she had the courage to 
love anything. 

The secret of the “wonderful success” Mrs. 
Nichols had in uplifting the fallen, was her unsha- 


232 


OUT OF THE WAY. 


ken faith in one saying of the Lord Jesus Christ: 

I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me.” 
She never tried to lift them up herself, and after- 
wards to show them the Saviour of the world. 
She did with the sick and the sinning and the 
blind, and those possessed with devils, exactly as 
did the believing ones of old: she “brought them 
to Jesus,” and she expected it to be said, “ he heal- 
ed them.” With her open Bible in her hand, and 
faith and love in her heart, she thus dealt with this 
woman. It was not therefore any wonder that 
after awhile the great tears gathered in Kate’s eyes, 
and that she said brokenly, “ Of course I will begin 
to pray and to think those promises over. Why, I 
do n’t want to be lost, if I could be saved. I never 
supposed there was such a thing as being started 
over again — being washed white. That seems the 
very, very best word I have ever heard — white I 
white! And the strange thing is, that ‘God so 
loved the world,’ wicked and all ; but I can believe 
it, and I will tell you why : it explains about you — 
I mean your hunting me up, your caring all this 
time whether I was saved or not ; you do for me 
just what he did for everybody. It is the love and 
pity in you. I never exactly understood it. Well, 
now, tell that girl I thank her. I am very glad she 


OUT OF THE WAY. 


233 


is safe ; she may live in the world and be respecta- 
ble. I never could have got as far back as that in 
people’s eyes ; but if I can be washed white, it is a 
thousand times more than I ever dreamed of. Tell 
her I will think and pray that verse : “ Gleanseth 
from all sin was it U 

She looked so exhausted by her excitement that 
Mrs. Nichols left her for the time, promising to 
come frequently, and giving her the Testament 
with marked verses to read. 

* ^ ^ ^ * 

Again the warm spring sunshine was making 
beautiful the cos.ey rooms at the Stuart home. Mrs. 
Stuart and her friend Mrs. Grey were sewing ; and 
this time Miss Hallenbeck was actually exercising 
her legitimate trade, namely, dressmaking. Never- 
theless, she was talking at a brisker rate than ever, 
now of one thing, now of another, stopping at regu- 
lar intervals to pet and admire the baby. This last 
was by no means least in the family circle. Mary 
gravely demonstrated to its admiring mother, six or 
seven times a day, its superiority over every other 
infant known to them, and Mrs. Stuart was not at 
all unbelieving. 

“ Have I had a talk with you since I saw Han- 
nah Nichols last U asked the spinster, cutting out 

30 


234 


OUT OF THE WAY. 


a paper pattern with alacrity. I do n’t believe I 
have, so I must tell you about her letter from El- 
sie — do you like your dresses pretty middling loose, 
or do n’t you } — well, Elsie is delighted with her 
new home. It is near a little German settlement, 
and not far from a pleasant town. She likes the 
country and the climate and the people. She goes 
to church and to Sunday-school. Her mother is 
very happy, and although their home is very plain, 
Elsie wrote that they tried to keep it as neat as a 
Quaker home, and Mrs. Nichols knew she could 
not aim higher. Her brother has invested his little 
property to very good advantage, and was kind 
to them. 

“Elsie sent no end of messages to you, Mrs. 
Grey — and don’t you detest this way of cutting 
sleeves so short, Mrs. Stuart, that a body’s arms 
must be cold to the elbow ? — yes, and I asked Han- 
nah Nichols about that girl I told you of in the 

hospital — the one that sent Elsie to the street 

Home ; and Mrs. Nichols — she preached me a first- 
rate sermon on that text. You see, after she had 
given me an account of the girl, I said something 
that called it out. Mrs. Nichols believes the girl 
was thoroughly converted ; she went to see her 
every week for three months until she died, and 


“ OUT OF THE WAY. 


Kate (that was the girl’s name) almost from the 
first listened gladly to the gospel. She prayed, and 
read her Bible, and came to an intelligent knowl- 
edge of the truth. The night she died — so the 
nurse told Mrs. Nichols — she kept saying, when- 
ever she found breath, ‘Him that loved us and 
washed us from our sins in his own blood.’ She 
left her Testament for Hannah Nichols to give to 
some other ‘ such a poor wretch as I was,’ she said ; 
and they found that she had taken a pencil and 
marked, as she had read it, every verse about being 
‘cleansed,’ ‘washed,’ or made ‘white.’ Those verses 
seemed to fill her with peace. Well, when Mrs- 
Nichols told me all about it, I said, ‘Wasn’t it a 
wonderful conversion — wonderful V 

“ ‘ What does thee mean by wonderful T said 
she, in that way of hers, sort of like an inquisitive 
angel looking into your way of thinking. 

“‘Why, that it was so good, so astonishing,’ 
says I. 

“ ‘ Is it astonishing to thee that God keeps his 
promises When he says, “ Though thy sins be as 
scarlet, they shall be white as snow : though they 
be red like crimson, they shall be as wool,” does 
thee think that he does not mean it at all V 

“ ‘ Oh’ no ! Why, sakes alive !’ says 1. ‘la’ n’t 


236 “ OUT OF THE WAYT 

so wicked as that. I only mean it is wonderful that 
such a hardened wretch, as she confessed herself to 
have been, did repent.' 

“ ' But that does not seem wonderful, either, to 
me,’ said she. 'I think we Christians talk too 
much at random. Is it wonderful, when a soul, 
condemned for all eternity, is willing to accept full 
pardon ; when a homeless, friendless, wicked wom- 
an is glad to be made pure in spirit,- glad to awake 
to a hope that immortal life and goodness may yet 
dawn for her hereafter } The wonder to me is 
that everybody does not repent, that every prodigal 
does not arise and go unto the Father. I believe 
many more would be saved if we did not dishonor 
God by our lack of faith. We set bounds for his 
work. We classify the people we think likely to 
be converted. We allow a margin for wonderful 
cases, as we call them, and then we say, in effect, 
this is all we can reasonably expect. Oh, if we only 
believed it a truth “ worthy of all acceptation, that 
Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners!” 
We read it so in the Bible, but we turn about and 
translate it to one another as if it meant, under cer- 
tain conditions (of our imaginations). He will save 
so 7 ne sinners. Thus it comes that we cry “ won- 
derful” at that which, giving all glory to his infinite. 


OUT OF THE WAY. 


237 


love, ought to be the most expected of spiritual ex- 
periences.’ 

‘ Well, you are right, Mrs. Nichols ; you are 
right,’ said I. ‘ The wonderful only applies to his 
love.’ 

“'We make mistakes, too,’ said she, 'in regard 
to the difficulty of influencing some “hardened” 
ones like this Kate. I find very often they need 
only to be brought face to face with the truth to be 
self-convicted. They have not, like respectable 
persons, a shred of self-righteousness to cover them, 
not an excuse in their mouths ; they plead guilty 
before you can set their sins in order.’ 

“ ' That is true, I know from experience with 
them,’ said I ; ' but — well — I am glad, any way, that 
girl died. I do believe her sins were forgiven and 
she saved for the next world ; but in this one, you 
know — why — ’ 

“ ' In this world thee does not think His “ grace 
is sufficient” for these He could save, but he 
could not keep .?’ she asked, so gently, I did feel 
downright rebuked, and I guess I looked so, for she 
went on, ' I know thee does not think that. Thee 
only means that there is a sense in which one must 
reap what one has sowed, no matter how bitter the 
harvest or how repentant the heart of the reaper 


238 


OUT OF THE WAY. 


I have not meant to rebuke thee, because I have 
too much reason to examine myself for lack of faith 
and of the charity that ‘‘ never faileth” ’ — how do you 
want that side-gore, Mrs. Stuart } as wide as in the 
black cashmere i* — Now the human being does not 
exist that I would say a pretty thing to for the sake 
of flattery ; but I spoke right out of my heart, 
‘ Hannah Nichols, I think you are about perfect.’ 

“The tears actually rushed straight into her 
eyes, and she expostulated, just like an innocent 
child accused of some wrong. She says, ‘ I never 
tried to give thee any such idea. I only spoke what 
was borne into me as truth. I neefl to take every 
word of warning into my own life. I have great 
faults.’ 

“‘For instance: now tell me just one,’ says I, 
bound to find out a little something about that 
woman, for she always has baffled my curiosity. 
When folks ask me, ‘Who is Hannah Nichols i*’ as 
they are for ever a-doing, I have to say, ‘ Ask the 
poor, or wait until you get to heaven.’ Well, so I 
says, ‘Tell me one.’ 

“ She waited a minute, musing as sweet like as 
those pictures of saints you see among the Cath- 
olics, and then she confessed, ‘ Perhaps thee has 
noticed that I struggle against an evil temper.’ 


“ OUT OF THE WAY: 


239 


“It’s a fact, Mrs. Stuart, I am that blunt I 
could have laughed outright, but I did not dare, 
she looked so serious. The idea ! But I actually 
suppose, now, that little Quakeress thinks she owns 
something that answers to a temper.’ If she does, 
she ought to see, just once, the genuine article ; but 
I do n’t suppose anybody ever will show it to her — 
cut this bias very evenly, Mrs. Stuart, or it will 
pucker on the waist — of course nobody is perfect, 
but some folks do get to be ‘living epistles,’ and 
Hannah Nichols is one of them. One Sunday I 
was in a crowded church, listening to a mightily 
eloquent preacher, when I spied her, and I declare 
I forgot everything else, in a revelation, as you 
might say, of what her work meant. Thought I to 
myself, ‘ Oh, what a sermon you would see^ you 
great congregation, if suddenly the minister could 
say, “ We will look into the past life of that little 
woman up there in one corner of the gallery, the 
one in a gray dress !” And then, like a panorama, 
should come before them the miserable homes she 
had brightened, the little children she had fed, the 
dying-beds over which she had bent, the fallen, 
heart-broken men and women she had held with 
one hand, and pointed out the way to heaven with 
the other.’ The tears ran right down my cheeks. 


240 


OUT OF THE WAV. 


and I dare say the folks in the pew thought the ser- 
mon was affecting me powerfully ; and so it was — 
my sermon, only a woman who held her peace was 
preaching it all unknown to herself. 1 never can 
hear that song, 

“ ‘ Will any one there at the beautiful gate 
Be waiting and watching for me ?’ 

but I think what a reception Hannah Nichols will 
get, if all those she has helped on ahead do come 
a-crowding out to meet her — only, how will she 
ever recognize the half of them ? for, if they are 
washed white, they wont be the disreputable-look- 
ing folks they were on this side, by any manner of 
means. But how I do rattle on about Hannah 
Nichols ! I do n’t know as it does any harm, 
though, for I never talk about her, but I am stir- 
red up to take a new start with that verse, ‘ What- 
soever things are true, honest, just, pure, lovely, of 
good report’ — think on these things, and try to 
live them as well. I begin to think I never shall 
know whether she has money of her own or not, 
how she comes to live up town, whether she ever 
had any family or not, and a dozen other things ; but 
I do n’t know as it is any of my business. When 
folks ask me, ‘ Who is Hannah Nichols V I shall just 
have to answer in her own words : ‘ A Friend.’ ” 




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